Death Call
by raiTonight29
Summary: "They're like death omens." Light thought they were nothing but stupid prank calls. "There's this story about woman who died with a really huge grudge. I guess she haunts the switchboards or something." One by one, his friends slowly drop dead. "Every phone has a contact list and she uses that to pick her next target." Now, he's stuck in a mystery he can't solve on his own.
1. You Have One New Message

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Death Note or the characters there in. The plot isn't mine as well. I do not own nor am I related to the creators of One Missed Call (Chakushin Ari). However, I have altered and added a few scenes to give a bit more Death Note 'feel' into the story.

So, uhm… If you have no idea what the ringtone used for the death calls is you should probably go check it out. You can go to my profile, the link should be there. And have it open on a tab or something. And then, when a scene comes up in the fic where the tone plays, play it as well. It enhances the creepiness factor!

**Warnings: **Character deaths, a little(?) gore, cussing, and (possibly) eventual LxLight.

**EDIT: **I deleted the first upload of this story because I wasn't exactly satisfied with what I had and was a bit disappointed so if you reviewed and it disappeared, that's because I deleted the original. Sorry for the inconvenience!

* * *

**Chapter 1: You have One New Message**

* * *

You have received one message.

_Click._

* * *

_**August 18, 2010**_

_**7:46 pm**_

_**Yagami Light's Apartment**_

"I'm telling you I'm serious!" a dark brown haired teenager said as she flailed her arms around in mid-air, probably hoping that her friends would just take her seriously for once if she did. "He just can't look through holes! He's terrified of 'em! Even if you promised him a million yen, he'd still refuse to look through them!"

A raven-haired man who had sharp, striking brown eyes behind rectangular glasses chuckled, popping a piece of cabbage into his mouth as he said, "That's interesting, Sayu. But why?"

Sayu faltered for a moment before she shrugged and said, "What? Why he's afraid? I'm not exactly sure why but," she stopped, looking as if she didn't want to disclose too much information before she shook her head as if doing so would clear her head from the previous thoughts that plagued it. "No, how would I know?"

Mikami playfully snorted. "You're his sister. How can you _not_ know? Oh hey, check it. Yoh, Light. Light!" Mikami called out. If he noticed the slight hesitation on Sayu's part, he made no comment about it.

Light snapped out of his self-imposed daze before turning his caramel brown eyes towards the other man. He had been busy trying to get the stupid stove lit. He absolutely refused to look underneath the damn thing.

They were hanging out and had brought the stove out for some hot servings of yakiniku at Light's place. They could have eaten out, but Sayu had a curfew.

"Can't you just peek and see if the stove's lit? Seriously, are you _that_ scared?" Mikami inquired, eyebrow raised and a knowing smirk intact.

Light sneered at him. _Jerk_. "No, I'm not. Sayu's just blowing things out of proportion again."

"Hey!" was Sayu's undignified screech, "Don't you remember your last physical?! You absolutely refused to look through the hole of that eye machine thing!" She pointed a menacing finger at her older brother. "You were so freaked out you didn't even get your eyes checked! You kept saying you were afraid of what you might see in there!"

"Hmm." Light hummed as he finally peeked underneath the pan to check if it was lit. He hated eyeholes. Ever since…

_Poofsh! _The stove suddenly decided that it was the right time to start working and burst into hot orange-red flames.

_Snip, snip… _

_a woman cutting her toe nails outside the house underneath a full moon…_

_a caramel brown eye peeking through a hole in one of the sliding tatami doors in a traditional Japanese house that led to a darkly lit room…_

_Snip, snip…_

FLASH!

Light whipped his head to where the flash came from so fast that he was almost sure that he snapped his neck.

Sayu giggled, "Absolutely priceless, Brother!" She took a glance at the camera and pouted, "And I still can't get over how photogenic you are. Even with your eyes so wide and mouth agape you look absolutely sexy!"

Light's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of the water before he made to grab at the camera, "Sayu!"

The siblings proceeded to wrestle for the camera.

"You know," Mikami started a few seconds later, his gaze thoughtful and serious, "I got this one friend and he lives in this apartment where the guy who lived there before committed suicide."

Light and Sayu stopped abruptly stopped their impromptu wrestling and they both sat up and listened to Mikami. They listened so intently that they didn't hear the soft sounds of the front door opening and closing.

"So a while back, he was washing his hair in the shower, when suddenly he felt that something was behind him. He freaked out and when he was about to spin around and look…"

Light leaned in and bit his lower lip, and was so engrossed in listening that he hardly felt something land on his right shoulder.

"There," Mikami continued, his sharp gaze resting on Light's, "On his bare shoulder was an abnormally thin arm…"

Sayu gasped, but Light knew something felt odd. He felt a menacing presence behind his back that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. That was when Light noticed the added weight on his shoulder.

It almost felt like…

An arm!

Light whipped around so fast he was sure he snapped his back.

And there, right behind him, was a pale young woman who wore nothing but deep black clothes.

"ARGH! Holy SHIT!" Light screamed.

THWACK!

…Only to get a good hit upside the head.

"Oh shut up, Light. I know my face isn't _that_ scary, Geez." Takada Kiyomi said as she shrugged off the black blazer she sported.

Light laughed as he threw Kiyomi a teasing grin, "Oh? Is it now?"

"Whoa. Whoa. Hold up, Light. That's my girlfriend. Back off." Mikami said light-heartedly.

"Hey, I'm not doing anything." Light said, hands in the air in a gesture of surrender, "What are you wearing anyway?"

"This?" Kiyomi motioned to her get-up, "Someone died. A girl from my old high school."

"Oh," Light blinked, "Sorry."

"Kiyomi-san should have brought some drinks!" Sayu exclaimed, as if not hearing the news of someone dying.

"Yes, Sayu-chan." Kiyomi breathed as she leveled a kind smile at the young girl, "But I can't go shop for drinks with these clothes."

Kiyomi blinked, "Are you even old enough to drink?"

"I don't mean beer!" Sayu screeched, and almost like an after-thought, she said, "Brother doesn't drink much anyway."

"I'll go out and buy some then." She nodded and turned to Light, "Care to accompany me, Light?"

"Huh?" Light started, pre-occupied with flipping the meet in the stove, "Why me? Mikami's your boyfriend."

"So? C'mon! Don't be such a priss. I haven't spoken to you in a while!" Kiyomi insisted.

"… Fine. I'm not paying, however."

"Good enough." Kiyomi said as she asked Sayu to show her to a room where she can change.

* * *

Light and Kiyomi stood a respectable distance away from each other as they strolled towards a near-by 24-hour Convenience Store both lost in their respective thoughts.

Something was deeply bothering Light. His nerves tingled and his mind reeled. Something was terribly not right. Everything was writhing around his consciousness. There was this foreboding and ominous feeling coiling around his gut. As if something was going to happen in the near future. Something unpleasant.

Something awful.

He shook the annoying thoughts away.

"So, uh… Do you know how she died?" Light questioned, and he felt a shiver run down his spine.

_Oh, sure, Light. Bringing that topic up will surely make you feel better_, he though bitterly to himself.

"Mizuki?" Kiyomi questioned as she tucked a stry piece of hair behind her ear, "She was out diving with a few friends. Got separated from the group and when they found her she was dead; drowned from the looks of it." She shrugged. "I hear that suffocation hurts a lot more than you think. When they found her, they said she looked terrible."

_Ting!_

They both stopped as they listened to the ring echo throughout the peaceful night atmosphere. It was clearly a cell phone ringtone.

_La do mi do la ti re ti…_

The eerie ringtone successfully made the hairs behind their neck stand on end.

"Aren't you gonna answer that?" he asked when he saw Takada make no move to answer her phone.

Takada raised one dark eyebrow, "Aren't _you_? That creepy ringtone certainly isn't mine."

Light threw Kiyomi an incredulous expression before he reached into his pocket to retrieve his cell phone. He flipped it open, "No, seriously. It isn't mine."

Takada blinked as she rummaged inside her bag for her cellphone, "What the- I-It's mine. But I'm sure that was not my ringtone."

"Who's it from?" Light inquired casually, stifling the nerves that were going haywire inside him.

"Huh? That's funny. How would this happen?" Kiyomi said as she pressed a few more buttons on her phone, "This number, it's mine. Can a cell phone call itself?"

'_Okay,'_ Light thought as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion, '_Weird'_. "There's really one way to find out, actually."

"Hmm." Takada hummed as she pressed 'Open'. Light leaned in and listened.

"_You have one message."_ The technical lady voice announced from the phone, _"Message One. Recorded: August 20, 2010, 11:12 pm."_

Kiyomi shot Light a flabbergasted expression, convinced that this was clearly some sort of elaborate prank.

It was still the 18th of August.

They both forgot all about that, however, when the voice message played.

"… _ssszzzttt… Oh my… It's starting to rain… sszzzzttt… …." _

Both were then extremely startled by the shrill sharp ear-splitting scream that followed soon after. It was so loud and sudden that it had pierced through the late night silence.

Definitely fucking weird.

"What the fuck…" Takada must have been very rattled for her to actually start swearing like that, thought Light. Takada pressed replay and still the same message played.

"The 20th? But isn't that the day after tomorrow?" Light inquired as they started walking again, although a bit dazedly. "And wasn't that your voice?"

"What? My voice? That's… Oh, please Light. Don't be silly! I mean, listen to yourself! How can that possibly be mine?" Kiyomi forced out a smile but it slightly shook at the corners.

Light shrugged, "It might be Mikami pulling a prank on you, you know?"

Kiyomi laughed, "Teru? Now, why would he do that anyway?"

"… I don't know." Light said, and he can't help but notice the undercurrent of something terribly wrong in the air. But he shook it off and continued walking.

* * *

A hunched raven-haired man who wore a white long-sleeved shirt and faded baggy jeans leaned over a corpse of a young woman. His breath was visible enough in the cold sterile room as he pulled on white latex gloves.

He pried the corpse's mouth open before he peered down inside it but was interrupted by a deep tenor voice that echoed slightly in the room.

"And what might you be up to?" the police chief said as he strolled leisurely inside the room, his hands inside his coat pockets to keep it from freezing.

L backed away from the corpse and slowly removed the gloves from his hands, "Nothing much." He replaced the cover that had been covering the corpse from the world.

"The police will be taking that body in to custody." The chief said as he neared the corpse, "The cause of death is unclear to us."

L turned and made to exit the morgue but was stopped yet again, "So, Mr. Detective. What was the name of your friend again? Mihael Keehl, was it?"

L only glanced back to give the police chief an impassive glare before turning and leaving the scene.

Yagami Soichiro stared at where the young man had been standing before glancing down at the corpse after removing the cloth that covered it.

And wasn't really surprise to see a red jawbreaker inside the open mouth.

* * *

_**August 20, 2010**_

_**5:30 pm**_

_**To-Oh Daigaku**_

"In most reported cases, when children are abused they manifest certain symptoms that…"

Light tuned his psychology professor out as he stared out of the window longingly. His days were boring and repetitive and he was looking forward to spending the afternoon off probably with Sayu afterwards. His sister was staying with him for a week as his father hadn't been home much again and Sayu didn't have any company at their original home.

"… First off, they will resort to violence often over the most trivial of matters. They will exhibit aggressiveness that…"

Light surreptitiously glanced sideways at Kiyomi who was busy texting with someone on her phone. From the giddy smile on her face Light could only assume it was from Mikami.

"… will then choose a weaker target or someone who they see in a daily basis as an outlet for all their built-up pressure…" the professor continued to ramble on.

"Date afterwards?" He inquired.

Kiyomi glanced at Light shortly before returning to her phone, punching a few more mushy words, "Of course! It has been two days since I last saw him! He has been busy lately, being a law student and all."

"Hmmm…" Light hummed.

"Excuse me! Miss To-Oh!" the professor called.

Kiyomi, momentarily taken aback, pointed at herself, "… Me?"

"Yes, you! Tell me, what's theme of this lecture?"

"Uhm…" Kiyomi hesitantly stood as she wracked her memory for something to answer, "Well, the abused becomes the abuser… I guess."

Light blinked before returning to his notes in a daze.

"Hmm… In a nutshell, yes." The professor said, blinking at the vague answer. However, before he could make a follow up question, the bell rang. He sighed and rubbed his forehead, "Alright, we shall continue the lecture next week. See you then."

The other students then proceeded to stand up and gather their things.

"I've got a date, Light. So I'll be going ahead then!" Kiyomi said as she got up.

"Yeah, sure. Have fun." Light said as he closed his notebook, not really listening to Takada.

"I will. Gotta run, bye!"

_Snip… snip…_

_a caramel brown eye peeking through a hole in one of the walls in the house that led to a darkly lit room…_

_Snip, snip…_

* * *

Light was dozing off on his couch when the slight tinkling of his phone on the coffee table woke him up. He let out a small yawn before getting up and reaching for his phone.

He looked at the small screen on his phone and the name 'Kiyomi' glared at him before he sighed and flipped it open, "Kiyomi?" and then he heard a bell-like sound. Wasn't that the alarm bell when a train was approaching?

_Klang klang klang klang klang!_

Light shook his head to clear his mind, "… Where are you right now?"

Light heard Kiyomi chuckle,_"D'awww. Are you worried for me, Light? Haha. That's new. By the way, can you come with me to this store that has this 10% sale tomorrow? I need a new set of clothes and I need a guy's opinion."_

Light frowned, "If you need a guy's opinion, why not let Mikami come with you?"

Kiyomi huffed, _"No can do, Mister Yagami, it's a surprise!"_

Light sighed, "I don't know why I put up with you. But oh well. Sure."

_Snap!_

Light raised his eyebrow at the suspicious sound that emitted from the phone. It sounded like cable wires snapping. Light frowned, his forehead creasing as his heart suddenly began beating faster and he could not help but feel dread crawl its way in his nerves.

"Kiyomi?" he asked hesitantly, "Remember that strange message you received two days ago?"

"_Huh? Pffft. Geez, Light. You're still going on about that? Please. I already told you it was probably some sort of prank."_

"Kiyomi." Light said as he held unto his phone like a lifeline, "You received that message the day your classmate died. What if-.."

"_What if her ghost is out to get me now? Hahaha! Light, please. Loosen up, will ya? I'm fine, okay? I'm just on the way home from my date with Teru."_

Light's gaze swung and landed on the digital clock sitting innocently on the table and he felt his blood boil, "Kiyomi, it's 11:10! Don't you know it's dangerous to be walking around alone at a time like this?! Where is Mikami, anyway?!"

Kiyomi laughed, _"Light, I'm touched that you care about me and all but this has to stop, alright? Chill! I told Mikami to go home. He has this exam tomorrow and I don't want him late for it. And I kinda… don't want him seeing my apartment right now. Ugh. I really should start cleaning the place. It reeks."_

Light frowned deeper, "Kiyomi. Listen. That phone message, wasn't it on the 20th? At 12 past eleven? That's one minute from now."

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

"_Kiyomi. Listen. That phone message, wasn't it on the 20th? At 12 past eleven? That's one minute from now." _

Kiyomi sighed. Light could seriously be very paranoid, she thought, I mean… that was just a stupid, insignificant voice message from an equally stupid insignificant bored individual who had no life. "Geez, Light. C'mon! Stop doing that! I'll be alright, okay? That message was probably some form of stupid glitch. Nothing—"

_Snap! Klang! Klang! Snap!_

Kiyomi stopped walking and turned towards the fence that aligned the bridge that stood on top of a railway. For some unknown reason, the wires were snapping one by one. Kiyomi felt the hairs on her back stand on end as she realized that something-

Something was watching her.

"_Kiyomi?"_ Klang! Klang! Klang! _"You there?!"_ Snap! _"Szzzttt… -yomi!... –there?...sszztt…ello?"_

Kiyomi sighed, "Look. Light. This railroad crossing is drowning you out." She said as she looked around her, trying to find those eyes that followed her every move.

_Klang! Klang! _

_Snap!_

"What?! I can't hear you!"

Drip! Drip!

And then she felt it. There was a single droplet of rain on her hand. She looked up and she whined. Great.

"Oh my… It's starting to rain…"

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

"_Look. Light. This railroad crossing is drowning you out."_

Light frowned. "Kiyomi! Hello? Are you there?!"

_Klang klang klang!_ The train signal was getting louder.

_Snap! Snap! _

"_What?! I can't hear you!"_

Light frowned. Of course, you can't hear me. You're in a crossing for god's sake!

"_Oh my… It's starting to rain…"_

Light froze. Everything seemed to stop around him. That, he thought, that was the message that day… He remembered, both of them, walking towards the store. Hearing that message. In the same tone. In Kiyomi's voice.

…"_Oh my… It's starting to rain…"… _

Light sat there, frozen and unable to do anything even though he knew what was about to happen next.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

_Fushuuk!... Shuukkk!_

Kiyomi froze as she heard the unusual sound behind her. A shiver ran down her spine as she felt herself grow cold. Something was behind her. She was sure of it.

_Fssshhuk! Fshuuk!_

Whatever was following her with that strange sound was directly behind her. Or was coming at her. She turned ever so slowly to look behind her.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

"_Kiyomi?"_ Light questioned as his feelings whirled into a never-ending maelstrom. This was not happening!

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

Kiyomi turned full way now. And her heart skipped a beat before she let out a shrill ear-splitting scream that reverberated across the night air. She felt herself being pulled towards the crossing's barricade, just where the wires had been snapping into two. The wires gave away from the force of her body colliding unto it and she fell to her death...

…Right in the way of the incoming train with a loud sickening 'thump!'

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

Light would have winced when he heard the scream but he was too shocked and terrified to do anything but gape.

"Kiyomi! FUCK, DAMMIT! Kiyomi!" Light yelled. He yelled so hard that Sayu had barged into his room, confused and scared.

"Brother? What's wrong?"

If only he knew.

"Kiyomi!" Light screamed at the top of his lungs, his fists clenching around the cellphone held in his hands. "Kiyomi!"

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

In the dark cold night, just a few meters away from a bloody convulsing body, was a severed bloody right arm, clutching at a cellphone, punching in a series of numbers unto the keypad before pressing 'Send'.

* * *

**A/N: **

Hello! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Death Call! Please, please, please review? I would really like to know if you liked the story or not! Constructive criticism would be a big help, too! I'm pretty sure there are lots of grammatical errors within the story so I would be glad if you took the time to point them out and stuff!

Reviews are like my fuel and my motivation and shit. I practically gobble them up!

Please?

Rai :)


	2. The Unveiling

Thank you to all you people who followed and favorited! *showers all of you with chocolate chips* Extra special kawaii shout-outs to **ShadowsOfPenAndPaper, Paint Me Violent, and Livvie Nexuzu **for taking the time to leave a review! :D

Please enjoy!

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**Chapter 2: The Unveiling**

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_**August 21, 2010**_

_**7:15 pm **_

_**Takada Residence…**_

A large portrait of Takada Kiyomi was displayed and flanked by varying shades of flowers, just so that all the guests would see just how pretty and vibrant and so full of life she had been when she was still alive.

Another brilliant mind gone to waste, they had said.

But to Light and Sayu, she had been more than just 'a brilliant mind'. She had been a very good friend; a friend who had been there ever since the lives of the siblings just began spiraling down the drain.

Sayu had cried all the tears she could shed and was now sitting silently in front of Kiyomi's picture. Mikami was there as well with a comforting arm around the Sayu's shoulders as they mourned together. He just sat there and stared dazedly and forlornly at the portrait of his lover.

Light blinked the tears away and narrowed his eyes. Something wasn't right with the way Kiyomi died. He swore to himself and to Sayu that he was going to find out why everything was happening as it was.

He ascended the flight of stairs that led to Kiyomi's room. She hadn't used this room since she had moved out unto an apartment conveniently located near the university. However, she had kept almost all her personal things here. Pictures from the past littered the vanity mirror that was connected to her dresser and little accessories made the lonely room come to life.

_Thump thump…_

Light stiffened when he heard the noise coming from a door that clearly led to Kiyomi's study. He stood up as silently as he could, given that he had sat on the chair before the dresser when he had walked in, and hesitantly approached the door.

Only to have it swing open, almost catching him by the nose.

Light stared at the man in front of him. He wore nothing but a plain white long-sleeved shirt and baggy jeans. His dark as ebony eyes that were highlighted by the bags underneath them gave Light a passing glance before looking away.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Light demanded but was quietly ignored by the mysterious man and he didn't see him pocket a familiar phone.

* * *

"Have you heard?" Sayu asked in a small voice as they trudged back to their apartment in heavy, mournful silence, "Kiyomi didn't die on the spot."

Light's lips thinned as he abruptly stopped walking; feet were rooted to the spot as he felt his stomach coil in chains. He felt the bile on his throat as he grew nauseous at the thought of Kiyomi having to endure _that_.

Light bit his lower lip.

Dear sweet Kiyomi.

"After her right arm and leg got cut off, she clung on to the officer saying, 'Help me, please! It hurts!'… and I just thought… _Oh, God..._" Sayu moaned as fresh tears started gathering on her on her eyes and threatened to slip down her face again. Kiyomi had been so good to them. She had been like a big sister to Sayu. She had been her mother figure.

Sayu's poor heart couldn't take it knowing Kiyomi had to endure so much before she passed away.

Light was about to comfort her when they heard footsteps. It sounded like it belonged to a group judging from the numerous foot falls that echoed across the silent street.

"Takada-senpai got killed, didn't she?" one small voice whispered into the night air, causing all the foot falls to stop and a heavy cold silence to envelope the two parties.

Light and Sayu stiffened.

_What? _Kiyomi was _killed_? Killed? By who? Why?

Questions formed, hissed and snarled at the two of them but they couldn't do anything. They were always helpless. Always.

They had always been pathetic.

_Ever since their mom died…_

"She probably did." One girl answered hesitantly and just as quietly.

That made Light snap. "What do you mean she got killed?!" Light rounded on the girl who had last spoken as he stepped out of his hiding spot with Sayu close behind him.

The girls all took a step back in shock and fear before they grew hesitant and weary.

"Please…" Sayu begged, "Please tell us… We need to know. Kiyomi meant a lot to us…"

The girls shared a look before one of them stepped forward and monotonously said, "Kiyomi-senpai got a call from her own cellphone, didn't she?" She almost looked as though she was expecting an affirmative answer.

Light flinched as his eyes grew a tad wider, "H-how did you know that?"

Sayu blinked and stared after her brother, "… She did?"

She then remembered when Light and Kiyomi got back that night with an assortment of drinks piled into 2 plastic bags.

"_Whoa!"_

"_I know, Teru. Weird, isn't it?"_

"_Yeah. But you're not fooling anyone. I know you're just pulling a this huge prank on us!"_

"_What? We thought you guys were the one pulling the pranks here."_

"… _but isn't that Kiyomi's voice?"_

"_See, Kiyomi? Even Sayu thinks so!"_

"_That's because you're weird siblings, Light. You think weird things…"_

t clearly led rom the past littered the wall in front of her study

"Y-you mean? That call? Oh god, oh god…" Sayu chanted, frantically swiping at her face to rid it of tears as Light wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"These calls… they're like omens: A portent of your own death," Another student chimed in.

"An omen of death?" Light repeated warily, forehead creased in confusion. Everything was not making any sense! Death calls? Omens? This was crazy! This was illogical!

"It has happened before." The girl who spoke up before said as she fumbled with her skirt, "Has Kiyomi-senpai mentioned anything about Mizuki?"

_Mizuki? _

Light's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, "The girl who drowned just a few days ago?"

The girl nodded. "She got the call, too."

Light shook his head disbelievingly. This was totally irrational! It sounded like a plot from some late night horror film he and his sister used to watch during the weekends.

But Light knew deep down…

Light knew this was for real.

He had been there when Kiyomi received the call. He had been on the phone with her when she died.

And he hadn't done a single thing.

"After Mizuki was killed, Kiyomi-senpai got a call from her own cellphone and-"

"What do you mean 'killed'? I thought she drowned!" Light yelled, advancing on the poor girl before he seemed to have come back to himself again. "Do you know what happened?" he asked hesitantly.

The student shook her head as the two other girls behind her looked down, "No, not exactly. But I heard this story where there's this woman who died with a really huge grudge. I guess you could say she haunts the switchboards or something."

Light shook his head again. It really was shaping out to be like a goddamn horror movie plot.

"She lurks from phone to phone. Every phone has a contact list and she uses _that_ list to pick her next target. That's how she does it; from one person to another." The student said as she wrapped her arms around herself as she shook.

Light could not discern if it was from the cold or from something else entirely.

"I'd set my phone to stop receiving incoming calls if I were you." Student number 3 said as they turned away from Light and Sayu after saying their condolences.

They both failed to notice the silhouette of a raven-haired detective hiding on the street corner just behind them.

* * *

_**August 23, 2010**_

_**5:19 pm**_

_**To-Oh Daigaku **_

"Kiyomi is dead."

Light looked sadly at Mikami. They were both leaning on their elbows against the cement railings of one of the school's outside corridors where you could readily see the Kanto skyline. The cold late afternoon air wafted against them as their heavy coats danced in the wind.

Light sighed. Mikami absolutely looked like shit. The upperclassman had dark bags under his eyes and his hair looked like it hadn't been introduced to a brush in two days.

"Yes, Mikami." Light said as if talking to a seven year old child. "I'm so sorry."

Mikami sighed as he shook his head, "It didn't have anything to do with the prank call she received five days ago, did it?"

Light frowned. Why did everything have to boil down to that stupid prank call? It was ruining his friend's lives and he couldn't do a single thing to stop it.

Light turned away from Mikami and stared out at the city, "It did. It happened the same day, the same time, and she said the… the same words, _in the same way_."

"I," Mikami said as he searched his pockets for his cellphone, "I don't sound like this, right?"

Light's eyes darkened momentarily before you gulped.

_If only he could find a way to stop this_.

He narrowed his eyes as he cautiously accepted the offered phone with a shaky hand.

_Then probably all the murders would stop with Kiyomi._

"_Message one. Recorded: August 23, 2010, 5:23 pm." _The technical lady voice rambled as Light's hands tightened around the mobile phone.

"_Oh shit! You mean that was today?... ssszzztttt…"_

Light cringed, his eyes widening in horror when he heard the deafening scream that followed after a few seconds.

He shook his head slowly as he brought the phone away from his ear. He stared at Mikami with large fearful honey-brown eyes. This… this was not happening.

Not Mikami, too.

He looked at his watch and paled when it read 5:21 pm. Two minutes! He only had two minutes! He took one glance at Mikami before he narrowed his eyes and hurled the cellphone unto the traffic 6 floors underneath them.

Mikami gasped, leaning over the railing to watch as his phone shattered into a million plastic pieces. He gritted his teeth and rounded on Light. "What the fuck did you just do!?"

Light glared at him as he grabbed his arm, "Kiyomi fucking died from that call, Mikami. And damned if I'm letting you die, too."

"So you just chuck my cell from the 6th storey of a goddamn building?! I had valuable contacts in there!"

Light only threw him a nasty glare.

"Light, look. I know this is a prank, okay? And I can't deal with this shit right now. I'm depressed and my nerves are shot to hell and I have exams soon so why don't you just cut to the chase and bring out your hidden cameras already."

"Dammit!" Light growled as he grabbed Mikami's arm as the older man started to walk away, "Look, Mikami! Kiyomi _died_ for fuck's sake! Surely, that's proof enough for you!"

"Have you ever heard of coincidence, Light?!" Mikami said as he approached the elevator at the middle of the hallway.

"Mikami, listen to me, dammit! Let me help you! Fuck!" Light said as he hastened to catch up with the older man's longer strides.

"Stop this, Light. Leave me the fuck alone."

"MIKAMI-KUN!"

Mikami had already pushed the 'Down' button of the elevator when a female voice called his name from the other side of the hallway they had come from. He took two steps away from the elevator doors before turning to his classmate catching her breath and looking absolutely pissed.

"Ritsuko-san?" Mikami blinked as he turned half-way to acknowledge her.

"Don't, 'Ritsuko-san?' me, Mikami-kun. I know you're still down after Takada-chan's passing but you were supposed to meet us this afternoon for the cultural festival meeting! You absolutely ditched us!" the girl pouted.

"Oh shit," he exclaimed, "You mean that was today?" Mikami said, fully turning his back towards the elevator, looking for all the world sheepish and remorseful.

Light gasped.

Mikami realized a beat after the words left his mouth, however and he felt a sense of dread wash all over him when he heard the elevator doors open behind him with a hiss.

He felt something wind slowly around his right ankle, but he was rooted to his spot in fear, his eyes wide as sweat trickled down the sides of his pale face.

Light watched over Mikami's shoulder to the open empty elevator in dread. The elevator was not there and yet the doors had opened. It looked like a gaping mouth of black, black, black. Nothing but inky black.

Mikami turned around to look at the empty elevator in trepidation as he breathed hard through his nose. Something was there.

Something was looking straight at him.

A head of a girl judging from its long inky black hair as it hung upside down just within the elevator doors. Only wide, terrified, black beady eyes were visible in the pale face, the eye balls surrounded in blood red.

It stared wide-eyed, long and hard, at Mikami as pale hands slowly appeared next to the head. Fingers slowly curling inwards as its eyes pinned Mikami to the spot.

Mikami's mouth opened and closed.

He blinked.

It disappeared.

_Ffsshhhuuuuk!… Fffssuukk! Ffssuuk!_

Light didn't see the female head but he was still frozen on his spot to even acknowledge the sound that came from somewhere inside the elevator. However, he was forced to file it into the back of his head when he saw Mikami get pulled into the shaft by some invisible force by his leg screaming.

Light could still hear his screams of trepidation echo through the halls even when the elevator doors finally closed.

In a daze, Light sank down unto the floor in a 'W' sitting position after the elevator literally ate Mikami alive.

He just sat there, staring at the elevator horrified, disbelieving and shaking.

Mikami died. He had fallen to his death from the sixth floor of the building. Mikami had been a victim of that ghost traveling through cell phones.

Light shuddered as he thought of who might be the next.

The elevators opened again, and inside were two students who stared at Light worriedly.

"Uhm, hey!" one male student said, "Are you okay over there?"

Six floors underneath them, Mikami, who was lying on his own blood, spat a red jawbreaker from his bloody mouth as he breathed his final breath.

* * *

_**August 23, 2010**_

_**6:00 pm**_

_**NPA Headquarters**_

"You know we're just following routine procedure, Light." Yagami Sochiro said as he sat down opposite of his son, passing him a cup of coffee, "We only have to ask questions to all the witnesses."

Light glared at his dad, "But Dad-!"

"We already have a statement from his classmate… Ritsuko, was it?" his Dad interrupted him, "It seems clear to us that Mikami's fall was nothing more than an accident."

Light slammed his hands on his father's desk. "Dammit, Dad! It wasn't a fucking accident! Mikami didn't just _fall_! I saw what happened, dammit! If you check Kiyomi and Mikami's phones—"

"Takada-chan jumped of her own volition. There were two students that saw her the day she died. If that wasn't suicide, then what could it possibly be?" Soichiro said as he glanced up at his son.

"I… I don't know." Light said, "But something's out there, Dad."

Soichiro pursed his lips as he glanced at Matsuda who was standing behind his son.

"Matsuda." Soichiro said as he got up and turned towards the window, "Please drive Light back to his apartment."

"Dad!" Light protested.

"Light-kun, let's go okay?" Matsuda said as he offered a sad smile to the distraught teen, patting him lightly on his shoulder. "Your father still has work to do."

Light huffed as he glared at the back of his father's head before he stalked towards the open doorway with Matsuda in tow.

When Soichiro couldn't hear them anymore he whipped up his phone and dialed a number before he pressed it into his ear.

It rang twice before he heard the click of someone answering the phone.

"L," Soichiro began as he rubbed his temples, "We've got another one."

* * *

_**August 23, 2010**_

_**8:30 pm**_

_**Yagami Light's Apartment**_

"It's happening just like what those girls were saying, Brother." Sayu said, sitting beside Light in front of the coffee table in the small living room area within his apartment.

"Yes," Light frowned at the mantelpiece, "And Dad's too stubborn to investigate the case further. They're both ruling Kiyomi and Mikami's deaths as suicides."

"But Kiyomi-san was killed by that…that… monster." Sayu said as she formed her hands into fists.

"Sayu…" Light breathed as he placed a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Brother…" Sayu began, "Mikami had our numbers stored in his phone, right?" Sayu said in a small voice.

Light froze a second before he sighed. Things were just going to get more complicated and terrible if either of them got the message. Maybe they should turn in their phones tomorrow before something like that happens.

Then, he heard it. It was soft at first, but it was without a doubt the soft tinkling of a cellphone. He froze there for a second, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"Don't worry. It's just a friend from school." Sayu said as she flipped her phone shut.

Light pursed his lips as he grabbed Sayu's cellphone, shut it off, flipped it on its back and plucked its batteries off as Sayu did it to his phone as well.

They then abandoned their phones in the coffee table with the batteries on the sides.

* * *

_**August 23, 2010**_

_**11:44 pm**_

_**Yagami Light's Apartment**_

Light immediately knew something was wrong when he heard a faint ringing of a cellphone from the general direction of the living room when he awoke from his sleep.

He knew just how _wrong_ everything was when he finally recognized the melody of said ringtone.

He got up with shaky knees as he stumbled towards Sayu's room and found her there sleeping peacefully before he started shaking her awake.

"Sayu… Oh god, Sayu, wake up!" Light said, his voice rising, "It's the same ringtone when Kiyomi received that missed call days ago!"

Sayu sprang off the bed with that and they both stumbled their way to the living room where the tone still played.

Light swiped his phone from the coffee table and he opened it. His stomach sank when a black screen greeted him.

"Brother…"

Light dropped his phone before he staggered towards his little sister who held her phone in shaky hands with a look of absolute terror on her face.

"But…" Light began, "But how did that happen? I knew I switched your phone off! We even took out the batteries!"

Both their eyes traveled back towards the coffee table.

Sure enough, there were two cellphone batteries on the surface of the upholstery. His and Sayu's.

Tears slipped down Sayu's face then, "There's nothing that's gonna stop her, Brother." She sobbed, "Nothing…"

Light clenched his fists as he bit his lower lip. He was going to stop that monster no matter what it takes and was going to punch it so hard in the face.

They peered at the phone as it read, '1 Unread Message: Yagami Sayu. Sent: August 25, 2010 8:24 pm'

It wasn't a voice mail, though. It was, however, a photo… a photo where it clearly showed half the face of a terrified Yagami Sayu. On the other half of the photo was a short darkened hallway that stretched vertically. What was behind her was what made Light's skin crawl.

There was a head of a woman that stuck out behind a corner of what looked like to be a darkened hallway. She had long dark hair that fell unto the ground as she crawled horizontally on the wall behind Sayu, headed straight for her, an emaciated arm sticking out at an odd angle.

Light shook his head, grabbing Sayu in a tight protective hug as he sobbed into her hair. "Oh God, Sayu."

* * *

**A/N:**

**Thank you for reading the second chapter of Death Call! **

I am really, _really_ not fond of attaching Japanese suffixes to names but ahhh it gets really awkward when I take them away so I'm really for the inconsistencies!

Please tell me what you think! And if you have questions or if you've found a plot hole, please speak up and feel free to leave a review! I don't bite!

Rai :)


	3. The Meeting

Oh, gosh. You people are so kind to me I don't even asdfghjkl. Thank you so much for taking the time to actually read this monster, guys! Virtual cookies and hugs for you all!

Extra kawaii thank you's to **Guest, AnonMouse524, missie.1308, Chellyisback, AliceXxX, Livvie Nexuzu, ArTyStoLe,** and** Just A Chess Piece **for reviewing!

This took quite a long time to go live because I didn't want to put up the new chapter if I wasn't finished with the one after it (like, I didn't post chapter 2 until I was finished with this chapter so on and so forth) but… I don't know… I'm currently not done with chapter four yet? But I really wanted to upload this now so? Oops?

Plus, chapter 4 was starting to _really_ creep me out and stuff so I went "WTH?!" and just left it for the morning. xD I absolutely LOVE horror stories but when I'm left on my own, I jump at the smallest sounds how sad is that? XD

Ahh, enough of my ramblings! Please continue on and enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 3: The Meeting**

* * *

_**August 24, 2010**_

_**5:08 pm**_

_**Mobile Phone Refurbishing Company**_

"We have successfully severed your service contract," a man dressed in a flimsy business suit said as he shuffled the many papers that littered his desk into a half-decent stack on his counter, throwing a mastered fake smile towards his clients, "What would you like to do with your phone?"

Light started at that, his grip on Sayu's arm tightening momentarily at the seemingly innocent question, "What?" he snapped at the clerk who visibly flinched as if slapped, "Good grief, get rid of it! Toss it into an incinerator, break it in half – I don't care!"

The clerk threw the siblings a bewildered glance before turning and tossing the phone into a recycling bin of some sort. Light could care less what they did with the blasted phone, so as long as they found a way to stop this insanity, he shall not rest.

Earlier, after seeing to it that Sayu had had a good hour or two of troubled, restless sleep (better than absolutely nothing, Light countered) they had gone to her school with the silent promise that they would ask their dad to help them solve this mess before it was too late to be able to reverse anything anymore. However, upon arriving, Sayu had immediately asked her friends to start deleting their contact numbers from her phonebook, passing her cellphone almost around the whole campus until Light had intervened when Sayu finally asked _him_ to delete _his_.

Having heard of the unexplainable weird deaths that have been occurring within the city, her friends hastily did as they were told, saying things like, "It's not as if I believe any of these things, Sayu... but just in case, yeah?" and "I'm sorry. It's just to be on the safe side."

Sayu merely smiled a world weary smile as she nodded at her friends and the sight of it made Light want to punch a nearby wall.

"Please delete your number, Brother." She said as she extended her phone to him. Light glanced at the phone and the numerous mini heart-shaped stickers that littered its surface with a grim expression before glancing back at his chagrinned little sister and back again to the blasted phone.

He swiped it away from her hands but did not move to scan her contact list. Instead, he did an about face and moved down the stairs in search of a mobile phone recycling company.

Now they were on their way back to Light's apartment, not even taking in the towering buildings on either side of them as they walked on in daunting silence. They haven't had a proper night's sleep ever since Kiyomi had passed and now it was catching up on them, but they couldn't afford to waste precious time when there was literally a countdown on top of Sayu's head.

"Are you sure that will work, Brother?" Sayu said meekly, her head bowed and her lips swollen from the constant biting.

Light frowned, clenching his fists until the knuckles turned white, "I'm not letting you die, Sayu." He growled.

Sayu, halting at the grave tone of Light's voice, grabbed his arm gently, her head still bowed down, "What are we going to do now?"

"We'll talk to Dad and we'll somehow get his help even if I have to get arrested for it." Light said, reaching into his pocket and extracting his cell phone from his jeans.

"We'll get to the bottom of this, Sayu." Light said as he pressed 'Call.'

He knew that the super sleuth Detective L was on the case.

Matsuda had been pretty informative yesterday.

**~ ; ~ ; ~; ~ ;**

_**August 24, 2010**_

_**Mitsui Garden Hotel**_

_**6:20 pm**_

Yagami Soichirou could, with all his heart and with a sound conscience, say that he had tried to fulfill his role as a father to both of his children. He worked hard to send them both to schools with quality education, had nice warm clothes for them to wear and made sure that they ate 3 times a day with snacks in between.

But that was just it; a father. A role conceptualized by society and its norms; norms that had to be followed down to the last letter. Should a person deviate from it, he would be shunned and looked down upon.

Soichirou wondered if he had been a _good _father.

The mother hadn't been.

If only he came home often.

If only he had realized that things at home were not alright at all.

If only.

"Yagami-san?"

Soichirou started. He blinked at the papers before him in confusion before he remembered where he was. He was in the investigation headquarters of the greatest detectives in the world, although the man almost always preferred to work in the shadows. Soichirou couldn't blame him, though. What with the number of people out for his head for meddling into their businesses and ratting them out to the public, Soichirou would be on a different continent from them entirely if he were on the sleuth's shoes.

This man was L, and he had approached them through his proxy, an older gentleman who was known as 'Watari' about the otherworldly case of people dying after receiving calls from their future selves. They had been skeptical at first and had been minutes away from waving the case away with a scoff when they got a call from a very frantic Yagami Light about the death of his female friend after apparently jumping from a bridge into the path of a running train and something about a mysterious phone call.

They had reluctantly acknowledged the super sleuth's proposal then.

And now, here they were.

"Cheif, your phone is ringing."

Soichirou stiffened at that but breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that it was his normal ringtone and not anything else. He retrieved his phone from where had placed it on top of a drawer and frowned when he read the caller ID.

_Light_

"Who is it, Yagami-san?" a dark-haired man with dark bruises under his eyes enquired as he resumed his perch on an unoccupied couch.

"L," Soichirou acknowledged the hunched man before glancing back at his phone, "It's Light. Probably called to coerce me to listen to what he has to say about the case."

"If Yagami-san would just allow his son to-"

"No, I am not involving my children into this L." Soichirou grunted as he moved to press the answer button, not seeing the detective pout.

"Please put it on speaker, Yagami-san," L said, a thumb positioned right on his lips as he stared at the NPA Chief with a determination that made him shiver, "I believe whatever Light-kun has to say may be beneficial to the case."

Soichirou frowned but nonetheless complied.

"Light?"

"_Hello Dad," He cut to the chase, "I know we've already had this conversation before but you've got to believe me, okay? Those deaths: Kiyomi's, Mikami's … they're all connected. You've got to help us with this, Da-" _

Soichirou sighed, "You can't expect me to believe that they died because there was some vengeful ghost haunting the telephone lines, Light. I'm a detective, not a – …"

"_Ok, fine," _Light sighed_. "I'll get to the point. I know you're on the case, Dad. I know you're looking on it and that you currently have L leading the case. You can stop pretending now."_

Soichirou stiffened and shot L a look but the detective was as unruffled as ever, even in a situation where someone who shouldn't know who he was, knew who he was. Kind of. "But how on earth did you-"

"_It doesn't matter right now, Dad! Right now,"_ a deep shuddering breath slithered through the phone's speakers, _"Right now, we've got to get to the bottom of this."_

Soichirou gritted his teeth, the knuckles on his free hand turning white around the table's edge as he gripped it hard. "What do you want me to do, Light? As far as I'm concerned those deaths were accidents."

Because even with the greatest detective in the world claiming it to be paranormal entities messing with the mortal realm, he still had a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea of ghosts existing.

The other side of the phone was silent for a while before Light's voice carried through the speakers, determined. "Include me in the investigation. I want to talk to L."

Soichirou balked. "Light!" he exclaimed, seemingly scandalized, "You know I can't do that!"

"_Why not, Dad?!"_ Light countered, _"I told you I know he's in the case, right?! Please, Dad, before it's too late!"_

"Light, you know full well L doesn't hold meetings with just anybody!"

"_But I'm not just anybody, Father! I am a lead, I am a witness! These chain messages-!"_

Soichirou groaned, "Not with these chain messages again, Light! Do you really think these chain messages are really the cause of all these deaths? All these disappearances? Light, listen to yourself! "

"_I didn't want to believe it, too, okay?! It's illogical and inconceivable and utterly stupid but- It's happening, Father. It's real and it's frightening!"_

"Light, I will not tolerate this- !"

"_Father,"_ Light sobbed into the phone, _"Sayu's next, goddamit!"_

Soichirou paled, jaw dropping slowly as the information sunk in. He vaguely even registered Matsuda gasping in the background.

Sayu? His sweet and cheerful Sayu? Dear Sayu who looked a lot like this wife, Sachiko, with the kind smile and the soft laugh and the heart-shaped face, had gotten the omen?

Surely, Light was joking!

Suddenly, Soichirou was mad. Livid, even. "…What?" He hissed. " Light, this insolence must stop!"

"_Father, listen dammit!" _Light hissed._ "She received the message early this morning and I refuse to just sit here twiddling my thumbs and let her die just because you refuse to believe me!"_

"You expect me to believe that all those people died because they received chain messages?! Light, that's just crazy! How do you expect me to-!"

"_Because I was with them when all of them died, Father! I was on the phone with Kiyomi when she died, I saw Mikami get pulled into that elevator and he fucking plummeted to his death, all of their time of deaths coincided with the call details! Everything. Fucking everything. All the voice messages were their voices! It was the exact same thing they said before they fucking died! If that isn't enough to convince you then I'm not sure what can! But Dad, I can't let Sayu die! I can't!" _

It was silent in the hotel room after Light's outburst, so silent that you could practically hear a pin drop. Soichirou turned to L with a grim face and L was taken aback at the sheer emotion that contorted it.

But L knew.

That face was what made Yagami Soichirou a good father.

L nodded, face equally grim. "Let your children come to the hotel at once. We haven't the time to waste."

**~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; **

Light looked around for his father at the hotel lobby he had instructed them to 'visit'. People were going in and out of the revolving glass doors, leading petty, perfectly normal lives, ignorant of the dangers that surrounded them and the gadgets they used.

If only they knew, they wouldn't be using the stupid contraptions.

Before Light could ponder on that train of thought any further a hand tapped him on his shoulder.

He jolted and spun around and met the haggard face of his father. He had large bags underneath his eyes and his hair had greyed a remarkable amount from the last time Light was able to see him. His shirt underneath the wrinkled suit jacket he wore looked like it hadn't been washed in two days.

"Dad?" came a meek voice from somewhere behind Light.

"Hello, you two." Soichirou said, his lips turned up in a small smile, but it was a fatherly smile nonetheless and Light and Sayu felt similar pangs in their chests at the sight.

Sayu was the only one who acted on it. She hiccupped and sobbed before throwing herself into his arms as he hugged her tightly.

"I don't want to die, Dad." Sayu sobbed unto his wrinkled suit jacket, a wet spot already forming on the dark cloth. "I don't want to die."

Soichirou hugged her tighter.

"I don't want to die. I'm scared, Dad."

"You won't die, Sayu. Not if Dad and I can help it." Light said as he fought back the tears from his eyes.

"We will see that she won't, Light." Soichirou said as he gently let Sayu go, moving his hand to pat her on her head.

"Now, come on, you two. We must not keep him waiting."

Both of the siblings nodded as they followed their father to the elevator.

The investigation headquarters was located on the entire top floor of one of the most high-end hotels in the city. Only people with authorization could access the top floor and only a few knew of its existence.

To the general public, Mitsui Garden Hotel only had 25 floors, not counting the skyscraper it was built on top of so L took advantage of that (and the most delectable sweets in the area) and began construction at his earliest convenience.

All the rooms had cameras and all feeds were accessible from the main control room where they were all currently gathered together. Numerous computer terminals were set up right underneath the wall wide monitor screen where all 67 camera feeds were displaying the various rooms, unoccupied or otherwise. Everything was in flattering shades of silver and blue, sharp and glinting under the pale glow of the wide screen above them.

When they disembarked from the elevator, they proceeded to walk towards the end of the hallway where their father ran an eye scan, a fingerprint scan and inputted a 12-integer passcode before they were eventually granted access inside it.

Light blinked at the extreme security measures L had installed but supposed it was only normal. After all, one didn't become greatest detective without gaining any enemies.

There, they were greeted with an old foreigner dressed in the finest of suits and a kind smile.

"Greetings, Yagami-kun," he said in easy, smooth Japanese, nodding at Light before turning to Sayu. "And to you as well, Yagami Sayu," He then nodded to their father and motioned for them to enter the sitting room where Mogi, Aizawa, and Matsuda were sat around a glass coffee table littered with papers, empty coffee cups, extinguished cigarette bars and half-eaten desserts.

"Hello, you two." Aizawa greeted with a sad smile as he stifled a cough, the huge bags under his eyes evident as with the rest of the team who looked up at their entrance.

"ꞋEvening, Aizawa-san! How are your little girls?" Sayu, ever the bubbly girl even with a ticking clock above her head, greeted as she swiped one of the pop tarts from the coffee table.

Aizawa coughed and cleared his throat. "Sadly, I haven't seen them in 5 days so I'm not really sure anymore. My wife just sends me some clothes at the NPA office," he said wistfully.

Sayu blinked, "Speaking of clothes," she turned to her father, "Light and I brought you a change of clothes, Dad. You should probably eat something, too."

Soichirou blinked down at the paper bag held in front of him by a sheepish-looking Yagami Light.

"Think of it as an apology for yelling at you over the phone."

"I also think that Yagami-san and the others should take a break."

Light turned around and his gaze met twin dark pools of black and he shivered. The man didn't look Japanese and yet his Japanese was impeccable. He was hunched and he had a thumb against his lips, the other hand in his jeans' pocket as he stared at Light unabashedly. Light stared back at him and at the way the man's eyes danced with a startling amount of intelligence as he gave Light a once over.

"You must be L." Light said as he fully turned to greet the detective. He didn't quite know what to think about the man but Light did know one thing.

He looked incredibly familiar.

L nodded. "Please call me Ryuuzaki, Light-kun."

"Whoa! You're not what I was expecting!" Sayu exclaimed, shoving another pop tart into her mouth.

L's gaze slid away from Light to Sayu on the couch, "Yes, I do get that quite a lot, Sayu-chan." He then stalked towards the coffee table and swiped that last pop tart from the plate before squatting on a couch. "Now, I would like to get back to the investigation as we have little time if we want to save Sayu-chan."

Everyone turned to the detective and nodded, faces resolute.

"I would like the police officers to get a break after this. Go take a shower, visit your families or eat, I don't care, just come back after 2 hours refreshed and ready for anything." Watari chose this time to enter and placed a few sandwiches, a slice of strawberry cheesecake and a pot of freshly-brewed coffee on the table before bowing and exiting the room silently.

"But before that," L said when Watari was gone, turning to Sayu who had started gaping at him like a fish out of water, "Sayu-chan, may we see the message?"

Sayu stiffened for a moment before she looked down at her hands. "We," she began, choking, "We got rid of the phone."

L's eyes narrowed as he bit on his thumb, however, he nodded after a few seconds despite being irked at the loss of evidence. "I understand," he then pulled out another phone from his pocket. "What was the date and time of the call?"

Sayu bit her lip and wished she hadn't eaten all those pop tarts, "Tomorrow, 8:24 pm."

"We haven't much time, then." L declared as he extended the phone he held in his hand. "Light-kun,"

"Yes?" Light started and warily took the offered phone, his expression creasing. "This is Kiyomi's phone." He said as he stroked the round edges of the gadget before looking up with furrowed eyebrows, "But how did you-?"

"Details, Light-kun. Now, what time did Takada Kiyomi die?"

"August 20, 11:12 pm."

L nodded, nibbling on his thumb as he continued to stare unabashedly at the confused brunet. "A minute later, an outgoing call was made from her phone."

Light's eyebrow creased further as he looked down into the phone again and navigated it towards the Call Logs Menu. True enough, the aforementioned call was listed right above his.

**Dialed Calls:**

_August 20, 2010, 11:13 pm_

_0352293339_

_August 20, 2010 11:11 pm_

_Yagami Light_

Light looked up with an anguished expression on his face. "But that's not possible. Are you saying Kiyomi made the call?"

"No," L said, "The hand holding the phone was severed and was some distance away from the body. Takada Kiyomi couldn't have made the phone call."

"Then who made the call?"

L extracted another phone from his pocket, this one clearly battered and old, and wordlessly handed it to Light with the Call Logs Menu already pulled up.

**Dialed Calls:**

_February 15, 2010, 04:32 pm_

_0352293339_

"They both dialed for the same phone number." Light murmured. "But I don't get it. Whose number is this?"

"Dial it and see, Light-kun."

Light frowned and looked down at the two phones in his possession before taking Kiyomi's and re-dialing the latest number. He placed it in his ear and waited with baited breath.

"_The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again,"_ came the generic automated voice message from the phone.

Light frowned and shut the phone before gesturing to the other more battered one. "Whose phone is this?"

"I do not wish to disclose incriminating information regarding the matter as it may lead to my identity so we shall refer to him as 'Mello'. Mello received the same type of phone call and died in a fire almost 6 months ago. Half of his face melted off but was luckily rescued in time for him to come out of that hell barely alive." L sighed as he forlornly popped a piece of cake into his mouth. "The doctors were quick to call it a miracle for having survived despite the burns but," L turned his eyes away from the rest of the team as he took back the phone, "I disagree. If he was going to die anyway, why couldn't he have passed away peacefully?"

"Ryuuzaki…"

L seemed to have snapped himself from his reverie, "Later that day when we sent his body to the morgue, we recovered something from inside his mouth."

Light frowned, "… from his mouth? What, like soot or something?"

L shook his head, "A red jawbreaker. The same type of candy was also found in both Takada Kiyomi's and Kurogane Mizuki's mouths. A red jawbreaker has been recovered from the elevator shaft Mikami Teru died in, too."

"… candy? But why?" Light looked up at the detective, hoping he could provide answers to all of his questions.

"That is what we want to know, too, Light-kun. We are currently waiting for the computer program to find a match to the number listed under both Kiyomi and Mello's phones and hopefully that will lead in to more answers."

Light frowned as he looked up at the wide monitor screen before them that displayed at least one camera angle for each room in the floor and finally on the running code with a search algorithm that impressed even Light as it correlated with every possible phone number database in the country.

"… so what do we do now, Ryuuzaki?" Matsuda asked as he took a seat next to Sayu, who turned to look at him.

"I would want to try something out but unfortunately the Yagami siblings have already refurbished the phone." L wiggled his toes and pouted, "Sayu-chan could try to contact the number listed in the phones and I can only hope someone, something happens to answer it."

"Can't I use a different phone to try and contact the number?" Sayu questioned.

L directed his blank stare at the girl before nodding hesitantly. "I would think there would be no harm in trying. Matsuda-san, can you please give Sayu-chan your mobile phone?"

Matsuda nodded and reached into his suit pocket for his cellphone. He passed it to Sayu, who hesitantly took it from his hands. She stared at it for a while before beginning to punch in the numbers.

_Ting!_

Light and Sayu froze.

"Matsuda, what did you d-" Soichirou began before Sayu stood, dropped the phone unceremoniously to the coffee table and slowly backing away from it, her brother and father immediately rushing to her side to try and calm her down.

_La do mi do la ti re ti… _

It continued to play the eerie tune before L swiped it from the coffee table and opened it to reveal that it had one missed call.

It read: _Yagami Sayu, August 25, 8: 24 pm. _Attached to the message was the same photo from the night before only now the figure behind Sayu was closer and more visible.

"Good Lord." L muttered in English as he stared at the peculiar creature in the photo, the hair behind his neck rising, "Just what on earth are we dealing with?"

* * *

**A/N: **

So, uhh, decided to upload it anyway despite not finishing chapter 4 yet because… uhm… BECAUSE I'M SO CHANGEABLE. /snorts whoever gets that reference I'm hug you ok. OK. So, please, please, please tell me what you think! Is the pacing too boring? Should I put in more inner monologue?

Should I kill Sayu? Oops. Meh, we'll see. XD

Hopefully I won't regret posting this earlier than what I promised myself. I think I probably will but meh, this is for you guys, all you beautiful people! Thank you so much for reading this monster!

Please leave a review! :D

Rai


	4. The Investigation

**A/N: **I should really start replying to my reviews it makes me seem really rude, oh gosh! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU really much for reviewing you guys have no idea how much hearing from you means to me, ok? OK.

Extra special than DTDY k you, thank you, thank you to **AnonMouse524, Just A Chess Piece, ****Gola50****, AliceXxX and DTDY **for reviewing! :D

Also, gosh, it's so funny. The electric company that is in charge for our region cuts powers off of a whole district routinely to avoid accidents like fires and stuff since we've been getting pretty heavy rains lately. I totally forgot about this while typing this monster up so when the electricity at home went out, I almost gave myself a fucking heart attack. It was like, 'oh, I'm getting to the scary part, should I really be writing this now? I mean, I'm home alone and-' *power goes out* "HOLY SHIT JESUS CHRIST!" And then I proceeded to laugh my ass off afterwards.

I lead a sad life.

Anyway, here's AN EXTRA LONG new chapter in compensation for the long wait, guys! I hope you enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 4: The Investigation**

* * *

_**August 24, 2010**_

_**Investigation Headquarters**_

_**10: 30 pm**_

When the program finally signaled that it had found a match, almost everyone (aside from Yagami Soichirou who had accompanied his daughter to her room to calm her down and to let her rest early for the day and had yet to return) abandoned their dinner plates and came rushing to the main computer in the room, gathering around the detective who was perched in front of it eating a pack of Panda March cookies.

"Where is it from, Ryuuzaki?" Light questioned as he leaned over the detective's shoulder. L frowned at the breech of his personal space but it quickly disappeared when his computer beeped as it brought up the information about the old Kagami Hospital whose emergency number was the one they were looking for.

L looked at his computer like it was spouting gibberish, his dark eyebrows rising almost up to his hairline. Why would a ghost attempt to make contact with an old hospital that has been abandoned for almost 6 months? Had it really been the ghost that tried to contact the hospital? Or was it the victims as a last ditch attempt to save their lives?

"Light-kun," L addressed the teen leaning above him, "Do you think that either of your friends who died were ever admitted to this hospital?"

Light shook his head. "Kiyomi's dad is a surgeon at another hospital so she mostly frequents her check-ups there for the staff discounts. Mikami, though, I am not quite sure."

"But why was a call made to this hospital a minute after they died?" L mumbled, biting off the head of a panda cookie viciously as he wracked his brain for answers. Did the victims call to get help? No. Kiyomi's right arm had been cut off, that had already been established. And Mikami Teru did not have a phone with him in the elevator. Then, someone had called the hospital for them? No, that was too coincidental. No one could have made it to the victim in a minute and no one would call an abandoned hospital for help. Would it be possible if they ran a check and catalogued all the personnel, patients, and deaths in the Kagami Hospita- No, L. That would be too time-consuming. They had to narrow down the search into a specific group of people.

If only something would come to him, something that could narrow down all the variables-

_Fssshhuk! Fshuuk!_

L stiffened at the unexpected sound and heard Light gasp and stiffen behind him. The detective chanced a glance to see brown eyes wide as he stared unseeing at the patch of space before him. "That sound…" the boy muttered.

_Fssshhuk! _

Light jolted, his erratic eyes wild as he met the detective's eyes. It had followed them here. There was no escape. It's here, it's here, _it'shereit'shereit'shere-!_

_Fssshhuk! Fshuuk!_

He whirled around, prepared to see a ghost of some kind but only saw Aizawa with an inhaler of some kind with Matsuda handing him a glass of water. The two officers turned to the two genii who were staring at them and simultaneously tilted their heads in silent question.

"What wrong, Ryuuzaki?" Matsuda questioned as he straightened.

Aizawa coughed a few times before clearing his throat, "I'm sorry," He said, coughing into his hand once more. "It's my asthma medication. I think the stress of the case is already getting to me."

Light took a wobbly step forward, his eyebrows creased as he regarded the inhaler with something akin to trepidation. "That's the exact same sound coming out of the lift just before Mikami fell."

"A metered-dose inhaler," L's mind proceeded to take this all in, deductions were made and the useless ones were discarded in favor for the ones that made sense and then finally he turned to the rest of the detectives in the room. "Look for all deceased asthma patients that were once admitted in the old Kagami hospital, of any age and with the time allotment of a year ago. Examine their information properly and if you find anything amiss or worth mentioning speak up and we shall all look into it."

"Yes, sir!"

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

It was 2:30 in the morning, Soichirou had already returned to help 3 hours ago and they had already gone through tens of asthma patients when Matsuda suddenly gasped and fell out of his chair with a loud clatter.

"W-what… is this?" Matsuda said as the others gathered around him, peaking at his computer unit that displayed the body of a little girl. The body was lanky and pale and was only covered in a thin short white towel that contrasted perfectly with the long black hair that ran down to the girl's waist. However, she had no face, which was probably why Matsuda had fallen on his romp a few moments prior.

L darted and grabbed hold of the mouse as Matsuda slowly straightened to stand behind the detective. Light moved and hovered on L's other side. L clicked on the documents attached to the file and his dark eyes quickly scanned the details of the deceased girl.

**Name:** Mizunuma, Mimiko

**Age of Death:** 10 years old

**Died:** January 18, 2010

**Cause of Death:** Asthma

**Mother:** Mizunuma, Marie

**Father:** N/A

**Siblings:** Mizunuma, Nanako

**Contact Number: **_0246273139_

**Home Address:** Room 312, Kuranara Apartments, Kanto

Light darted to another computer terminal and started pulling up police databases and the old Kagami Hospital database of its personnel. He tapped a few keys and fiddled with the database, pausing as his brown eyes scanned the information displayed before him.

Matsuda pulled out his cellphone before quickly dialing the listed contact number in the document. He put it in speaker and waited for someone to pick up.

_Ring…_

_Ring…_

_Ri- Click._

Everyone fell silent as static quickly filled the soundless void.

"H-hello?" Matsuda hesitantly asked as that was most definitely the sound of someone picking up.

"…_Hello," _

Everyone visibly froze as they were not really expecting someone to answer the call, but a croaky voice answered the now visibly scared shitless detective.

"_You have reached the Mizunumas. I'm afraid we can't come to the phone right now…"_

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as it was apparently only the answering machine and not some vengeful ghost on the other line.

"Ryuuzaki, take a look at this," Light called and everyone moved to his unit. Soon enough, confused expressions filled all the police officers in the room.

"The mother's missing?" Soichirou questioned, "And for almost 6 months?"

They didn't notice L's eyes widen slightly before they narrowed.

"She worked in the Kagami Hospital as well before the hospital moved to another location. She also hasn't paid for the funeral expenses of her deceased daughter because she disappeared a few days later," Light answered, pulling up another search engine and typing in another name.

"At least the youngest daughter is still alive," Matsuda supplied as the engine generated the profile of Mizunuma Nanako.

"She was taken custody by the child welfare clinic and was eventually sent to Mushino Foster Home when her mother didn't return after a week," Light said, his eyebrows furrowed. "Is that even legal?"

"With no one to take custody of Nanako-chan, someone in the clinic must have a soft spot for her to let her stay there until she was comfortable enough to transfer to a place she was new to." Aizawa supplied.

"That could be the case," L said as he fiddled with Mello's phone. "There's a 45% chance that we have found a solid lead. Please look," he held the phone up towards the other people in the room with the phonebook pulled up.

_Brian Smith_

_Chiko Miyanaga_

_Child Welfare Clinic_

_Cindy Timothy_

"It's the clinic," Light breathed. "Mello is connected to the child welfare clinic."

L nodded, "That seems to be the case. However, I do not remember him ever working or volunteering for anything that required him to interact with children. Mello is," L bit his thumb as his lips quirked into a tiny smile, "Mello is not one who possesses the patience to look after children."

Light couldn't stop the grin from appearing on his face at the small display of emotion from the detective. He shook his head slightly before quirking a sculpted eyebrow and asking, "Perhaps he knew someone there?"

"It's that or someone got his number through a donation slip." L explained as he got out of the chair and was heading for the phone by the main monitor, "Most people send thank you messages to those who bothered to donate."

Light frowned as he watched the detective pick up the phone, "What are you going to do, Ryuuzaki?"

"I'm calling the clinic, Light."

"What?" Light checked the clock on the monitor before whipping around, "Do you even know what time it is?"

"Yes, Light-kun. It is currently 3: 15 AM."

"You can't call someone around this time! Try to be considerate!" Light said as he stalked forward, ripping the phone out of the detective's hand before returning it gently to the receiver. "Seriously, if someone does answer, you are going to get the yelling of your li- what?"

Everyone was staring at him like he had grown another arm and both arms were doing the Gangnam style. If it weren't creepy and disconcerting, Light would have chuckled at the sight. All of them stayed that way before Soichirou let out a low chuckle.

"I didn't think I'd live to get to see the day L gets scolded," he shrugged at his son's raised eyebrow, "Much less get scolded by my own son. It's kind of amusing."

Light blushed as L pouted, "I get scolded by Watari sometimes."

Light raised an eyebrow, "You're actually admitting to that? Most people would deny-" Light trailed off as the detective practically shoved his face towards his, making him back away accordingly as he stared at the infinite black eyes of the dark-haired man.

"I," he began, "am not like most people, Light-kun."

Light stared at the detective in concern before he slowly nodded. "Yeah," he cleared his throat, "Ok."

L stood back and stuck his hands in his pockets before shuffling away from the phone, "I would suggest that everyone get some rest for the night then and we shall continue the search tomorrow morning when the clinic opens at 10 AM tomorrow."

Light pursed his lips, as he stared uncertainly at the cold tiled floor, as if fighting with himself. He finally looked up and turned towards the exiting detective. "Ryuuzaki?" he called.

L paused in his trek towards the only existing exit in the room but didn't turn around.

"Thank you," Light said, a small smile forming on his pale pink lips, "for everything."

L didn't move for a moment, and Light thought he had said something wrong and was seconds from laughing it off when L shifted. "Light-kun misunderstands," L said, turning half-way around to address the teen. "I am only doing my job and what is required of me."

The smile on Light's face only grew, making a pale dusting of pink appear on the detective's face before he turned away and exited the room.

* * *

_**August 25, 2010**_

_**Child Welfare Clinic**_

_**11: 25 AM**_

"Miss Ann Watanabe was in charge of the Mizunuma siblings when she was still alive," a veteran social worker in the clinic said as she led Matsuda, Light and Soichirou (Aizawa had been sent home to recuperate and Mogi was left to look after Sayu) into the inner offices of the organization. "She was a cheerful, sweet young woman. Always looked after the kids, you know? She loved them."

Light frowned. The one in charge of the siblings died? Did she happen to be a victim of the phone call, too?

"Did she receive a weird phone call prior to her death?" Matsuda asked as they entered a cluttered cubicle, not noticing the exasperated glance Soichirou gave him.

The elderly woman looked up at the ceiling in thought as she brought a manicured finger to her cheek. "Come to think of it, she did." The woman nodded as she snapped her fingers before she bent down to retrieve a box from underneath the desk. "A call from her own number, it was. Although we didn't pay it any mind. Must have been the young ones messing around with us old blokes. Oh, ho, ho, ho."

The woman paused in her chuckling as if she realized something odd, setting the box down unto the table as her voice took on a wistful tone. "She died two days later, though. Fell down a flight of stairs in her apartment building a few months ago," she shook her head as if the memories gave her nothing but sorrow, "You lot should have seen the look on her face. You could tell she was really scared."

"Was this before Mizunuma Marie disappeared?" Soichirou asked as he accepted the proffered box of knickknacks of one late Ann Watanabe.

The woman blinked before a sour look contorted her face, "That woman," she said, shaking her head before hissing, "such cruelty."

Soichirou blinked, "Excuse me?"

The woman suddenly began pushing them away from the office, "It's about time you lot got along then. I have children to look after. I dialed the Foster Center and they said that little Nanako-chan is still out on a walk with her peer group so why don't you just come back later this afternoon, eh? Inside that box are all of Miss Ann's things regarding her work in this here facility so run along, then! I bet you don't have time to listen to an old woman's ramblings. Go, shoo!"

As the door slid shut in their faces, Light could only blink at the opaque glass door in confusion.

"What was that all about?" Light asked, irate at being turned away so quickly when he hadn't been done asking questions yet.

Matsuda shrugged, already making his way to the Rolls Royce conveniently parked outside of the welfare center. "Maybe it had something to do with the mother," he supplied. "Probably didn't like her and stuff?"

"I wouldn't like someone too if they just disappeared and left their daughter with nothing but the clothes on her back." Soichirou said, passing the heavy brown box to Light before gently prying the passenger seat open and getting in the car while Matsuda walked around the front, opening the driver's seat open and putting the key in ignition.

"I trust your search was fruitful?" L said from the back seat as Light quickly climbed in next to him.

"More or less…" Soichirou grunted as he settled in. "She showed us out when we started asking questions about Mizunuma Marie, though. It was as if she didn't like the woman. We got kicked out before we could ask what was wrong."

Light tuned them out as they discussed, preferring to dig in the box for something that could give further leads to their investigation. They didn't have much time left, if they wanted to be able to save Sayu. He pushed away various receipts, reports, diagrams and theses that didn't have anything to do with them before something colorful caught his attention.

He set aside the other papers before retrieving the pocket-sized journal from the bottom of the box, flipping it open and scanning the records that were kept inside it. It was like a log of findings that happened to the children she was in charge off in the welfare clinic.

'Bingo!' Light thought as he flipped to the logs before Mizunuma Mimiko died.

**December 5, 2009**

_Mizunuma, Mimiko – Asthma Attack_

**December 7, 2009**

_Mizunuma, Nanako – swallowed drawing pins by accident_

Light raised a sculpted eyebrow at that. '_By accident?' _That seemed a bit suspicious. No one swallowed pins by accident if they only had proper parental gui-

Light's eyes quickly scanned the other entries, feeling his blood growing cold at it continued on and on.

**December 12, 2009**

_Mizunuma Nanako – burns in upper thigh and arms_

**December 15, 2009**

_Mizunuma Nanako – bruises and laceration on arms_

**December 20, 2009**

_Mizunuma Nanako – another batch of lacerations on arms_

**December 23, 2009**

_Mizunuma Nanako – pesticide in right eye; sent to Kagami Hospital's emergency room_

Light's breathing hitched as many more were listed under the month of December alone. Something was just wrong with these logs. These weren't just accidents. He knew these, he knew them. He was accustomed to them, he survived them. He had lived through them and he was sorry he did.

_He couldn't breathe._

"What are you looking at, Light-kun?" L's voice pierced through the maelstrom in his mind that cropped up from the memories of a time long past, like a caged beast stirring into consciousness.

"I-it's Watanabe Ann's notebook," he said, breathing out a shaky sigh as he passed the notebook to the detective's waiting palm, "She was in charge of the siblings when she was still living."

L's took the proffered notebook and dark eyes quickly scanned the contents almost greedily, orbs gradually getting wider before it reverted back to a bored demeanor as he lowered the notebook. "It would seem that Mizunuma Nanako-chan was a victim of child abuse."

Light stiffened and this didn't go unnoticed to L, whose dark eyes narrowed at the strange reaction.

"Really?" Matsuda reached around the driver's seat to take a look at the notebook himself, "This is horrible," he breathed as he scanned the entries. "Who would do this to their own children? Pesticide? Burns?"

"A cruel sick bastard, that's who," Soichirou spoke up and the growl in his voice was enough to make even L back away in surprise, Matsuda only looking at him in deep concern. "No one should have to go through domestic abuse, physical or verbal, _especially_ children. _Children_, for God's sake! Just who would be perverse enough to take pleasure from seeing children hurt?" He hissed, "It's a good thing that woman died, she deserved it and more, dammit."

Something told L and Matsuda that the police chief wasn't just talking entirely about Ms. Mizunuma Marie.

Light flinched at the sheer anger coating his father's voice as he scratched at his arms obsessively until they practically turned red. He sat still and stared unseeing at the seat in front of him, sucked into the horrors of the past.

_His biological mother, Sachiko, had died giving birth to his little sister, Sayu, but he never, not once, resented the lively little girl. She had been Light's personal bubble of joy; he could never scorn the girl for something that couldn't be helped. His mother had always been of weak-heart, he knew that. She had also been the sweetest woman in Light's life, no matter how short she had been in it. His father had also been head over heels in love with her, too. She had the prettiest soft brown eyes, the gentlest of smiles and the softest of hands._

_His father had tried to get by without a woman in the house to properly take care of the kids and their grandmother. However, that and doubled with the pressure in the office, he had been close to collapsing a month after. So the only solution he could come up with was to remarry. He remarried a woman so cynical and jaded; her demeanor so stoic that she put Soichirou, a detective who had just about seen everything, to shame. However, she was responsible enough; she was gentle and had a pretty smile that he hadn't seen it coming: that any of the horrors of society would ever take place in his very own household._

_Not until everything was too late and the trauma had been dealt in his children's psych already._

_Light had just come home from school, his 'Tadaima!' ringing all throughout the house and he was getting used to not receiving a warm 'Okaeri!' back ever since Sachiko died. Instead, the only thing that greeted him was Sayu's ringing wails._

_His 'mother' had neglected to feed his little sister again. _

_He toed off his shoes, not even bothering with the house slippers as he trudged his way into the old, traditional Japanese house, complete with yellowed tatami doors. He made it to the kitchen, dead set on making his little sister a bottle of milk because truth only knows when the little girl had last eaten. _Probably last night,_ Light thought begrudgingly as he picked up a bottle of milk from the refrigerator, the only thing modern in the kitchen aside from the microwave, before sticking it in warm water._

_After a few minutes and deeming the milk warm enough for consumption, Light carried it up to Sayu's nursery, passing by the old fashioned balcony of the house where his stepmother was located, cutting her toenails meticulously under the pale late afternoon sunlight._

_Snip…! Snip…!_

_Light didn't even spare her a glance, afraid that if he met her eye, she'd hurt him again. It was best not to catch her attention. He shuffled passed her, intent on getting to Sayu's room unscathed before –_

"_Oi, Light-chan," he heard her call out and he froze in his steps, fully expecting to have his ear twisted out of his head when she continued, "Shut your damn sister up, will you? She's been going on and on for the whole afternoon and she's grating on my nerves. You know, more so than usual."_

_Light slowly let out the breath he had unknowingly been holding before letting out a steely 'Yes,'._

"_Good boy, woof woof." _

_When he entered his sister's bedroom he was greeted by the ungodly wailing only enhanced 3 times in intensity and pitch and immediately felt sorry for the poor baby who hadn't done anything wrong at all. He popped the bottle cap off after giving the bottle a good shake, gently sticking it into the girl's waiting mouth._

_Quiet, at last._

_Now, it was time to check up on Grandma, he thought, as he made to turn around but was hindered by his stepmother standing by the doorway, bumping into her and almost falling on his butt._

_Oh gods, he was going to get hurt again tonight, huh? _

"_Finally, someone shut that damn sucker up. Sheesh, I wonder why I even agreed to marry your father when I knew I'd just be stuck here playing maid with his children. It's a good thing he also gives me a bit attention and absolutely anything I want whenever he's home or I'd be meaner to you guys but gosh, the places I could be right now," she said as she inhaled a drag from the cigarette between her wiry fingers, "why don't you check on granny, then, boy? She's been quiet for quite some time now," the grin she gave Light was so disturbing the boy hurriedly got to his feet just so he can get away from the crazy woman. "I wonder if she finally hit the bucket?"_

_Light surreptitiously threw her a nasty glare over his shoulder before slowly walking up to his grandmother's room, the old wooden floors creaking under his feet . The hallway to his grandmother's abode was always so dark that Light almost never visited her room (granny always came out to the balcony for a spot of tea, though, so Light never missed her) so he walked slowly, carefully – fearing that if he walked too fast, the wooden floor might actually give out on him._

_It was quiet. Too quiet, in fact, that it gave Light goosebumps as the familiar tatami sliding doors of his grandmother's bedroom came into view. There was a faint staccato creaking coming from the general direction of the old woman's abode, the rhythm never faltering as he gradually neared the room._

_Creak…_

_Creak…_

_It faintly reminded Light of a rocking chair, but something was wrong, oh so very wrong. The room was too cold, so dark, too eerie. The hair behind his neck stood on end as he gulped, hesitating to shove the sliding doors aside to greet the sole woman who had tried to protect him and his sister from the crazy woman he called a stepmom because his Father was almost always never at home to witness anything, busy with looking for income to feed them, clothe them…_

"_What's taking you too damn long you sissy bastard, I told you to check on grandma!" a sudden voice had him whirling around and there he saw the crazed countenance of his stepmom, cigarette hanging from her pursed lips as she stared down at the boy with wild eyes. She took the cigarette from her mouth, grabbed Light's right arm and started thrusting the lit end of it in the pale scarred flesh visible to her._

"_Stop!" Light sobbed as he struggled to get away. The pain making his eyes water as he felt his skin burning. He froze when he felt a hand fisting locks of his hair as his face was shoved into the direction of the sliding doors. _

_It was only then did he notice the small tear in the tatami, a hole large enough to peep through. His struggle was futile as his stepmom forced him to look through it, the curiosity of what his grandma was doing behind the doors stopping him from shutting his chocolate orbs tightly. _

_What he saw made him damn his curiosity to the scorching depths of hell._

_A thick, heavy-duty rope dangled from one of the wooden beams of the room, swinging to and fro in a steady pace. His terrified eyes slowly followed the line down to where the rope was tied tightly around his grandmother's neck as she stared at him with dead cold frightened eyes, her mouth agape and stuck in a silent scream infused with the death that clung tightly to the walls of the room._

_She swung to and fro…_

_Creak…_

_Creak…_

_Creak…_

Light screamed.

L flinched and didn't move for a second as Light brought his knees up and curled into a protective ball beside him in fear. The boy was shaking his head at an assailant only he could see and L, for a brief moment, thought that it was their ghost appearing to him.

However, the boy ducked his head and started hyperventilating and sobbing, scratching at his arms absently, obsessively until they started bleeding. L's sharp dark eyes took in the old scars littering Light's arms, agitated by the continuous assault.

L vaguely registered the fact that Yagami Soichirou had gotten off of his seat at the front and was now doing whatever he can to calm his son back down from his panic attack. The police chief knelt on the car floor next to Light.

"Light," Soichirou said, his expression one of deep sadness and conflict, as he grabbed his distraught son in the shoulders as the boy continued to sob. "Oh, Light," he sighed before enveloping him into a hug, his son's head tucked underneath his chin as he made hushing sounds and a quick "I'm sorry. It's okay. Everything's okay. It's over, Light. You're safe," until the boy finally calmed down.

L only bit his thumb as he said, "Yagami-san has a bit of explaining to do."

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

They shortly returned to the investigation headquarters to drop Light off to allow him to rest (but not without much protest from the irate teen who had quickly recovered from the panic attack) before they quickly departed for the new Kagami Hospital. During the car ride, Soichirou explained that he remarried because he couldn't just let his mother (Light and Sayu's grandma) to do all the house work as she is of old age. He married a sweet and responsible enough woman who he liked to a certain extent. When he met her, she had a good enough head on her shoulders; she had a pretty smile, too.

He didn't know she could be capable of the atrocities she had committed in his household.

The abuse had only been brought to his attention two weeks after his mother committed suicide and he unexpectedly arrived home early to surprise his family. He had been horrified to see Light crying in the corner with cigarette burns in his arms and a sprained ankle, Sayu's unstoppable crying and his second wife waving around a kitchen knife as she pranced about the house saying things like "If Light is a bad boy, mommy must be bad to him, too!"

Long story short, he sent her to prison, vowed to himself that he was going to protect his children himself, be there for them despite how tired he is, and work his butt off until he practically collapsed in exhaustion. They relocated to an apartment near his office despite the expensive rent and stayed away from detective work for a full half year to spend time with his kids and basically just start a new life altogether, the past behind them.

L took all this information in, storing it in the back of his mind for future reference as they pulled into the hospital parking lot.

He decided that he better come along with the other detectives as they strode inside with confidence. They approached the nurse station and started asking around about one Mizunuma Marie.

"Oh, Marie-san?" a nurse said as she clutched a clipboard close to her chest and tucked a piece of wayward lock of hair behind her ear, "She's a nurse from the previous hospital. Hardworking lady, loved and cared for her children to bits, that she is."

"Ah, Miss Mizunuma from the old Kagami hospital?" a doctor said as he lent back on a wall, "She spent most of her spare time in the hospital working her butt off what with her being a single mom and all. She knew her way around the old hospital like the back of her hand!"

Now the detectives were confused as fuck.

L then demanded that they get answers from that child welfare clinic woman fast or he was going to eat all the candy he had with him obnoxiously.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

"So you're saying she was really abusing her daughters?" Matsuda asked as they gathered around the old woman from that morning.

"Yes, most likely," she said as she twiddled her thumbs, her forehead crinkling in anger, "She wasn't charged, though."

"What?" Soichirou began in righteous anger, "Why not?! Surely her frequent hospital visits must have been cause for alarm?"

"While it is true that Nanako-can was unusually prone to sickness and injury, it's not as if Miss Mizunuma ever tried to hide it." She said as she looked up at the police chief in annoyance at his interruption. "Whenever something untoward happened, either Marie-san or Mimiko-chan were hot on the line to the emergency room," she let out a snort, "They must have it on redial."

"… what?" Soichirou breathed as he took a step back in confusion.

"And beyond that," the woman added as she looked off to the side, "The hospital staff praised Marie-san as a truly devoted nurse. She even pulled all-nighters just so she can get extra pay to be able to support her family."

"Munchausen's Syndrome," L muttered as he stared at the old woman who flinched at his sudden speech.

"You're familiar with it?" the old woman said, "Well, at least Ann-chan thought it was the case, too."

"Maun- who now?" Matsuda asked as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Munchausen's syndrome— by proxy, technically," L elaborated as he curled tighter into himself, not looking away from the old woman in front of him. "It's a psychological disorder, where a parent or guardian either fakes or induces sickness on an otherwise healthy child."

"What?"Soichirou hissed, "But why would someone do _that_?"

"For attention and praise, mostly." The old woman supplied, "A mother who spends her whole life slaving over her poor, sick child gets plenty of it. That, and sympathy from others."

"And social credit, of course." L continued, wiggling his toes on the cold plastic of the chair he was on.

"What?" this was probably Soichirou's favorite word for the day, "That's it? Just for a handful of pity and a few pats on the back?"

"Sure," the woman shrugged, "It's not that uncommon. Often, it's systemic. The abusers were themselves abused as a child." She sighed as she got up and collected the untouched coffee from the table they were all gathered around, "When Mimiko-chan had her asthma attack, Marie-san was there. But she just stood there and watched her child die, didn't even raise a single finger to help her or call the hospital."

"Poor Mimiko-chan," Matsuda said as he watched the old woman depart, "She was probably a nice girl. Maybe took care and protected her younger sibling from her cruel mother, too."

No one was able to respond to that and now they were at a complete lost at what to do next.

* * *

_**August 25, 2010**_

_**Investigation Headquarters**_

_**8:00 pm**_

Yagami Sayu liked to think that she was a brave young woman. In fact, she couldn't think of a time where she didn't face any obstacles life liked to throw into her face with a middle finger salute. Damned if she was going to start now.

She had woken up bright and early for once that morning (no, it was not because she woke up from a nightmare, nope, Yagami Sayu never got frightened by fucking nightmares! Hah, that was child's play) and was greeted by the sight of sprawled detectives in the main function room, dead to the world. Even her father was asleep on a pile of papers significantly placed underneath his cheek as a makeshift pillow as he snored lightly.

They must have spent the whole night investigating just so they could catch the culprit before 8 that night.

Sayu knew though, deep down inside her core that there was no escaping the vengeful spirit from killing as many people as it could. She just hoped she went out like a light when it was finally time for her to die and hopefully, as painless as possible.

Now, it was almost time for her to die.

They were all gathered in the investigations room, with all the camera shots enabled in the big monitor in front of them, making it clear that there were no other inhabitants in the whole floor.

Soichirou was pacing a hole through the floor, his agitation palpable in the atmosphere that enveloped their entire group and truthfully, Sayu was getting dizzy just looking at him at a loss of nothing else to look at.

"Dad," she said as she patted the seat beside her, beckoning him to come and sit beside her, "calm down, okay? I, I think I'm ready, whatever that creature has in store for me, I'm fucking—" "Sayu!" "– uh, ready, yeah!"

"You're going to be fine, Sayu." Soichirou said, not commenting on her rather colorful language due to his nerves, "Nothing is coming for you."

Sayu only smiled, "It's just, after I saw all the effort made to stop this, it's just… it's really something, you know? It makes me really happy knowing what all of you are doing and really going out of your way to save me and shi- stuff. It's … thank you." She finally said, choking up at the nerves in her body and the fact that she was actually very, very terrified. She was suddenly whirled around in her seat by her irate older brother.

Oops?

"Sayu, what are you saying?"

"You and I both know she's unstoppable, brother." Sayu said as she glared at her stubborn brother. "Nothing can stop her, not you, not me, not L, not Father. She's just…" Sayu shook in her seat as tears suddenly welled up on the rims of her eyes, "She's just full of hate, brother. I can feel it, she wants to _hurt _people. She wants attention. She won't stop until she's satisfied."

Light glared. He had briefed by his father about what they found out after they abandoned him here in the investigation headquarters with nothing to do but twitch at the nervous, edgy energy that accompanied him.

"I just want you to promise me one thing, Brother," she said, instilling all the seriousness on her face, turning to her father, "Dad," then she turned to L who had been quiet for some time, "Ryuuzaki," then to Matsuda, and Mogi who were rock rigid with nerves, "Matsuda-san, Mogi-san, please," she released a deep sigh, "I want all of this to end with me."

As she expected, her brother threw a fit, "What?! Sayu, no, what are you saying? You can't possibly… You're… she's not… I-…" Light looked into the eyes of his sister and quickly looked away, "God dammit."

Sayu smiled, "Thank you, brother."

Then the lights started flickering.

Everyone halted whatever they were doing as they looked up at the lights in the ceiling in momentary confusion.

_Ting~!_

Everyone froze, the familiar ringtone playing through the room, making the temperature drop a few degrees. It was silent, and one by one they turned to either side of them in search of something they did not know. In search of something they couldn't possibly see.

_It was here._

_La do mi do la ti re ti…!_

Sayu clung to her brother as they stood from the couch with shaky legs. They looked around for where the sound was coming from. However, nothing was in the room with them. Nothing; only the god awful ringtone that had taken very man lives.

"Where are you?!" Matsuda yelled, looking from side to side as he gritted his teeth in frustration, "Stop doing this!"

_Do la ti re ti…! _

They'd made it this far, dammit!

Sayu struggled to calm her breathing, feeling the knuckles of her hand that fisted her brother's shirt turning white from how hard she was holding on. She slowly opened her eyes, not even noticing that she had closed them during the confusion. What she saw made her freeze on the spot, jolting her equally agitated brother into looking down at what she was staring at.

There, below both their feet were many long clumps of straight ebony hair tangling across their limbs. They both screamed at the same time when the locks tightened around their ankles.

"Light! Sayu!" L yelled, drawing attention to the siblings as they were forcibly drifted apart by an invisible force, isolating Sayu from the rest.

_La do mi do la ti re ti…!_

Sayu stumbled backwards into one of the computer units, breath coming out in shaky puffs as she was powerfully ripped away from her brother's side. She reached an arm out to steady herself on the table behind her, momentarily struggling with her uncooperative legs. She froze however, when something rectangular vibrated underneath her sweaty palm.

But, she thought, didn't I refurbish it yesterday? Didn't brother and I get rid of it? She slowly turned her head, her movements erratic and shaky as she lifted her hand off the cellphone on the countertop.

She could recognize those heart-shaped stickers anywhere.

It was her fucking phone.

_Incoming Call, _The little screen at the front said, _Yagami Sayu_.

Screaming, she grabbed the phone and flung it to the nearby wall where it shattered in a million plastic pieces, ultimately ending the stupid ringtone it was playing.

Now, everything was quiet except for everyone's heavy breathing. Nothing was moving, no one was dying. Everything was silent. Light slowly got up with the help of L, offering the detective a nod in thanks as they both moved to where the others were gradually approaching the jumpy girl.

"It is over?" Mogi questioned before they were flung away by a force so strong they ended up a few feet away from Sayu who had been blown away from the force of it, too.

She slowly sat up and found out she was right in front of the gaping exit of the investigation room, the short darkened hallway beyond it frighteningly familiar to her. At the end of the hallway where it broke off in two different directions was an arm that stuck out from the corner.

One by one, the camera feeds in the wall-wide monitor started getting disconnected; exchanging room visuals in favor of a grainy screen, until only one feed remained. No one was surprised that it left the camera monitoring this room up, showing the back of one terrified Yagami Sayu as she stared at the very same hallway that was in the photo of the omen she received two days ago. She let out a shrill scream one more time before she started crawling away from the exit.

_Fsshuuuk! Fssshuuuuk!_

She froze.

"Sayu!" Light screamed, as he made for the girl but was stopped by a hand on his chest. He followed the hand, to the white-clad arm and up to the frightened look stuck on L's face as he stared agape at what was behind Light. Light whirled around and was forced to look at the only available camera feed in the monitor before them.

Half of the feed was of Sayu's pink frightened face and half of it was of the short darkened hallway that stretched behind her. Right there at the left hand corner was an emaciated right arm as a face gradually came into view, hovering parallel to the ground. Almost as if the owner was crawling horizontally on the wall. Its long black hair fell to the ground as another arm stuck out from underneath it, giving it an impression that it had broken the limb off at the odd angle it was in.

They were looking at the very image that was sent to Sayu's phone two days ago.

Light and L simultaneously turned towards the girl again before running together to pull her to back to her feet so they can get away.

"Sayu, stand up, c'mon let's go!" Light beckoned, forgetting the fact that the ghost was blocking the only exit in the room. However, when they finally got the girl to stand on her shaky legs they heard a sickening crunch of bones being broke from below them.

"_Don't worry. I'll take you to the hospital,"_

The disembodied voice made the trio freeze.

The arm Light held on his grasp suddenly twisted in an unnatural angle as Sayu's piercing scream rendered his left ear deaf.

Light and L let go of the writhing girl as her right arm was snapped and forced into another twisted angle, the hand twisted around in the wrist joint palm-up before the whole arm was snapped and twirled around by the shoulder joints; the cracking and breaking of the said joints sickening and loud in the room that was quiet aside from Sayu's screams. The right arm, now clearly broken beyond belief, twisted behind Sayu's neck, dislocating the upper arm entirely from her shoulder joint before bending at the elbow, wrapping the lower arm around her neck in a chokehold, transforming her screams into gurgled grunts.

The arm twisted again, choking her, choking her, choking her as the rest of the team could only look on in horror; cold, morbid horror as Sayu's very own arm beheaded her. The arm twisted and twisted and tightened and tightened until Sayu's head ultimately fell from her shoulders, her arm whipping around like a helicopter, her body walking a few more steps. The newly decapitated body finally dropped to the ground, a few feet away from her head that, in some twisted joke of fate (or the fucking ghost that killed her), was facing the rest of the team with a horrified expression forever etched on her pretty features.

Light, L, Soichirou, Mogi, and Matsuda could only look on with wide, terrified eyes, their breathing halted for the moments Sayu had choked herself to death, their mouths agape at the horrid, sick thing they just had the misfortune to witness. Light, whose chocolate eyes were so wide that they almost looked like they might pop out of his sockets, slowly dropped to the ground; the position he took on reminiscent of when Mikami had died as he stared at the head of his younger sister who had been killed right before him in horror.

Slowly, Sayu's mouth opened, the blood that had collected inside it running out and curling under her slowly paling cheeks. And along with that blood was a jawbreaker of the similar color, rolling out of her mouth and to the direction of her brother. L and Light followed its path with their eyes to where it finally ended, stopping just one foot away from Light's knees, glistening with the blood of a loved one so viciously taken away from him.

The rest of the detectives, speechless with what they had just witnessed, slowly moved forward to where the younger ones were situated, minding the cluttered debris of computer units, candies, and the wood and glass chips from the broken tables and mugs. Everything was silent aside from their unstable breathing.

_Ting~!_

"Fucking shit!" Matsuda uncharacteristically shrieked as the tune started filling the room once more, "Fuck you!" he screamed, voice hoarse, at no one as he circled the room, angry beyond belief, "Fuck you, you cruel woman! Fuck you! What is wrong with you, you stupid, _stupid_, woman!? Stop this madness, damn you!"

_La do mi do la ti re ti…!_

L whipped around to find the source of the noise, his ears already fearing the absurd ringtone as the fear was slowly instilled in his person, just as the other detectives not yelling hysterically jerked from side to side, in search of the cellphone it was coming from.

Light removed his gaze from his sister when he heard the first note, his eyes welling up with tears as he looked up and stared ahead of him. He could hear the others moving behind him and Matsuda yelling out obscenities in the air.

_He felt numb._

Mogi helped the Chief remove a few piles of debris beside them, L and Matsuda (after L told him to calm down) gathering around the two of them until they came across a familiar cellphone buried underneath it.

The small screen in front of it said:

_Incoming Call: _

_**Yagami Light.**_

.

.

* * *

**A/N:**

Ah, you guys have no idea how LONG I've always wanted to type those last three words out! /kira laughs Seriously, it was what I was looking forward to since Chapter 1! xD Also, I actually sat myself down for a whole day and wrote 8 pages straight for this! I surprise myself with my attention span sometimes. Anyway, there should be at least one or two more chapters before I end this monster!

Tell me what you think, please?

Thank you so much for reading!

Please leave a review!

Rai :)


	5. The Truth

Extra special thank you, thank you, thank you to **BabyKangaroo, Just A Chess Piece, Guest, Chellyisback, AliceXxX, Dori, ArTyStoLe, SlashIsLaw, ****Guest, ****furubafeind95, ****Guest, ****DTDY**, **Blank Personality, ****FrozenDreamBox, Zambino**, **Sanguivore**, **KY78Directioner4-Life**, **sarupetto **and** Tsukiyomi Hinamori Amu** for reviewing! :D

So, okay, first off, I would like to apologize for the glaringly obvious lack of LxLight action. The majority of this story is entirely under horror and mystery and now that I think about it, I really should have labeled both under those genres. However, being an avid LxLight shipper, this completely flew out the proverbial window and I labeled it under romance. I can't force out the googly eyes and the epic declarations of love in the chapter in fear that it might destroy the mood I have tried so hard to create in the story so I extremely apologize if this is what you were looking for in the fic. :( You guys will have to content yourselves with the fanservice littered about the entire chapter! XD

There will be no smexy times, but I can assure you there will lots of hugging and patting and fluff! Well, as much fluff you can inject in a horror story, anyway. *throws flower petals around*

[[**PSA:** If you want to listen to the ringtone, the link should be in my profile, ok, guys? Because it's actually pretty spooky once you listen to it! :D Also, I encourage everyone to go watch the movie! Although it is in parts, it is available in youtube! Just type in "Chakushin Ari Part 1" and it should be the first link to be listed and uploaded by Kingtigerproduction. ]]

HOW DOES ONE WRITE IN L'S POV DAMMIT. Gosh dang.

**THIS IS UN-****EDITED**. Please be warned that this is littered with typos, grammar errors and awful spelling.

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Truth**

* * *

_**August 25, 2010**_

_**Investigation Headquarters**_

All the rooms were quiet now that things have calmed down and the reality of the situation finally settled in their heads. Weary and shaken so terribly, the older detectives had their heads in their hands, willing the logic and the detachment they have honed all throughout the years of detective work back into the forefront of their minds but finding it extremely difficult to do so.

What they were witnesses of hadn't been of a typical murder. They had no murderers to profile, no evidences to inspect and no puzzles to solve. No, it was entirely a whole different thing, this… this _monster_ they were trying to stop.

It had taken one of Chief Yagami's children.

Now, it was after the last one.

No one could blame the Chief for breaking down after they retrieved the body of one late Yagami Sayu. They had sent her off to a private morgue and were cremating her tomorrow so she wouldn't have to stay in that beheaded state anymore. Sayu would have haunted them if they let her stay that way for much longer than necessary.

They were all seated on the various seats around a rectangular glass coffee table in another suit on the same floor, untouched mugs of coffee and tea on top of it now cold after being left there for an entire hour. An entire hour had passed since Yagami Sayu died, was brutally murdered, and beheaded. God only knew what Light and Chief Yagami were feeling right now, Matsuda thought as he paced behind the couch Mogi and the Chief were occupying.

He bit his lip, almost drawing out blood, and he doubted anyone would want to see that right now., given what had transpired earlier. It would be a reminder that they had failed. Sayu had died and now it was after Light next. If only they worked faster, if clues were just easier to find, Sayu would have… Sayu would have…

Matsuda turned sad brown eyes to his mentor and felt sorry for the poor man. He was gradually losing the only family he had tried so hard to build, save and protect single-handedly. All those years of painstaking sacrifice, hard work and sweat the Chief had to give, and only leading to this. Matsuda wondered how the Chief was still here and not bawling over Sayu's body in the morgue right now.

Soft tapping of cellphone keys made Matsuda whip around, his paranoia and nerves so wired that anything concerning cellphones frightened him now. Any mention or being in the general vicinity of one made a cold sensation slide down his spine and his skin crawl as fear spread through every cell in his being.

He watched as L continued to tap on Light's cellphone before a soft click emitted from the phone's little speakers.

"_You have one new message,"_ the automated female voice of a phone announced, loud against the thick silence that enveloped the room. _"Message one sent on August 26, 2010 at 7:13 pm."_

Matsuda unconsciously clenched his fists, remembering the very reason why Chief Yagami wasn't mourning right now. That message was tomorrow. The ghost had changed its pattern. Instead of two days in between every victim, it had switch to one. The damned woman probably felt cornered because they were closing in on her killing streak and was afraid that they would eventually stop her. Well, she should, Matsuda thought haughtily as he stopped pacing to listen to the message.

There was silence at first, a silence so still that Matsuda thought there was no message waiting in the phone, no ear-piercing screams, no moaning. No nothing. Could it be that they had successfully rescued Light in time to save him from a miserable fate like what his sister had to-

"…_Why?" _they heard the Light (it was definitely Light, that smooth tenor could only belong to one person) on the phone ask in a small, trembling voice; the voice of someone so weary, desperate and confused. It just sounded so tired, and frightened and everything in between.

Matsuda's hopes were quickly dashed after hearing the message play. Light asked the best questions sometimes, he begrudgingly thought as he clenched his fists tightly. _Why_ indeed. Why them? Why was the ghost doing this? Why couldn't they get away from this monster? Why was it haunting then?

_Why?_

L tapped at the cellphone again, his nonexistent eyebrows scrunching in annoyance only he could see. Matsuda could identify with what L was feeling. He was so frustrated he was shaking. _'Was it really frustration?'_ a small voice at the back of his head said, haughty and cold, '_or are you really just terrified, Matsuda? Terrified that you might be next? The next one this murderous ghost wants to kill after Light?'_

Matsuda slumped against the wall behind him as the voice message played across the room again.

"_Message one sent on August 26, 2010 at 7:13 pm."_

Everyone, even distraught and disgusted-with-himself Matsuda, listened as the white noise of the message began, the question everyone wanted answers to ringing through the silent, mourning room.

"…_Why?"_

**~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~**

L suddenly got up and stood on the sofa chair he was sitting on with Light beside him who had his head down and his auburn hair covering his eyes. Mogi and Soichirou flinched at the sudden movement on the couch opposite them, nerves still frazzled and buzzing with left over adrenaline. L had the cellphone clutched tightly in his hands as he got down from the chair, his teeth grit in an uncharacteristic show of emotion. He viciously snapped Light's flip-phone in two before he dunked it into the aquarium in the room, the two phone pieces (the LCD and the keypad) swaying to and fro until it finally reached the bottom of the glass container.

L turned towards the only silent figure in the room, slumped and unmoving on his side of the couch. Of all the people in this rotten world to have been targeted, it had to be the most undeserving of them all. During the short time that the detective had known the teen, he had observed that the boy had a really good head on top of his shoulders. He knew that Light was intelligent given that he had hacked his school records and was greeted with straight A's and an IQ that could rival his own. L also admired that Light was able to act independently as opposed to being ordered around in order to be productive. But most of all, he saw the raw determination that shone resilient in those chocolate orbs.

But right now, the determination that had intrigued L had dulled, replaced by a muted mousy shade of brown instead of the golden hue it initially possessed.

"I think Light-kun needs to go and get some rest. We have to start bright and early tomorrow morning." L said as he stood in front of the silent teen. "Tomorrow we'll…"

"There's nothing we can do," the teen said dejectedly, his eyes obscured by his chocolate bangs. "There's no escape. Tomorrow night," Light gave out a shuddering breath, unconsciously scratching at his arms again, "I'll end up like Sayu."

The other detectives looked on with varying expressions of dismay, wanting to disagree but not really knowing how because even they themselves couldn't convince the doubts in their minds that everything was going to be alright.

"Don't lose hope, Light-kun!" Matsuda cheered, a forced smile on his lips, "Who knows, something will come to us tomorrow!"

Light's fumbling with his hands grew more panicked, "Just what exactly do you think we can do in 20 hours?"

Matsuda hesitated, opening his mouth to probably tell him otherwise but no words came out of it. L silently looked between the two before deciding it was time to intervene. He really wasn't much of a comforter but he should probably try anyway.

"Light-kun," he said as he squatted down in front of the teen, meeting blank remorseful eyes. "While it is true that we have failed to rescue Yagami Sayu," he saw the telltale tensing of Light's shoulders at the mention of his sister's name, "I still have it in my intentions to honor her final request to the outmost of my ability."

When Light remained silent, L sighed. "I admit it is my first time handling such … an eccentric case hence I am unable to react to certain situations adequately. Everyone one of us in this room is terrified Light-kun; terrified of the paranormal, terrified of the unknown, terrified of not knowing what to do now that we have confirmed that it _is _a ghost terrorizing us." He shot the police chief a short glance before he returned his black eyes towards the teen, "However, this will not stop us. We will end this tomorrow,"

Light looked up with clear bright eyes as L stood up, shoving one of his pale hands into his pockets, feeling his knee joints pop back into place. He lifted his free hand, hesitated, and then awkwardly patted the young man's head, "per Sayu-chan's wishes, Light-kun."

And with that L departed from the room, the rest of the room looking on as he shuffled his way to the exit.

He had phone calls to make.

* * *

_**August 26, 2010**_

_**Kuranara Apartments**_

Light gazed up at the old rundown apartment building in trepidation as he felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. The walls of the building had yellowed over with age and huge water stains that had turned black marked every wall unfortunate enough to be under air-conditioning units (although those looked broken). It looked so old that Light was reconsidering entering the place in fear that it may not be stable anymore. However, a quick look around and he saw laundry set out in order to dry in the early morning sun, indicating that yes, there were still patrons in the building no matter how neglected it looked on the outside. Overhead, dozens of crows circled the roof of the apartment, cawing and squawking together.

"Shall we, Light-kun?" he heard a distinct monotone voice speak up right next to him and he turned to the detective who had called the landowners of the apartment building last night to inform them that they would be coming on such a short notice. They had left together early in the morning with Watari as chauffer as they sent the other detectives back to the child welfare clinic to gather more information while Soichirou (after much shouting) finally agreed to look after Sayu's burial which was to be held the following day. He had wanted to come along, to gather more information however the others had eventually talked him out of it.

Light nodded, "Let's go, Ryuuzaki."

They entered the foyer together and were greeted by a mousy old man who looked around the age of 49. He turned towards them with a small kindly smile before waving them over as he absently rummaged around in his drawer, probably looking for a set of keys.

"You must be Ryuuzaki-san from last night." He said, finally retrieving what he wanted from the drawer and he walked around the front desk. "Good Morning."

"Good Morning," L replied, and Light noticed him unconsciously shifting closer as the man approached, "We would like to see Miss Mizunuma's apartment right now."

The man smiled good-naturedly and motioned for them to follow him to the lift at the end of the hall.

When they reached the appropriate floor, Light could not hide the fact that he had shivered and he saw L glance at him shortly before they walked out of the lift behind the landowner.

"They just disappeared suddenly and left all of their stuff," the landowner said, clasping his hands together in front of him as he walked. "It's a real nuisance!"

They neared a door in the middle of the hallway and the landowner paused, glancing up at the nametag on top of the door before giving out a successful little chuckle. "Here we are," he said as he dug in his pants' pocket for his ring of keys. He pulled one out from the ring and inserted it into the lock of the nondescript door in front of them. There was a click and the door slid open and the landowner turned to Light and offered him the single key, "Return the keys to me when you're done, alright?" he said with a wink and Light hesitantly nodded at the cheeky old man.

The old man turned to a frowning L and he smiled as he said, "Don't worry about removing your shoes. We're redecorating the place anyway." And with one last wave, he turned around and made for the elevator at the end of the hall. Light bitterly thought, '_It's about time you did.'_

Light glanced at L and found the older man looking up at the nametag on top of the door. He blinked and followed his gaze, the name tag reading the names of the previous owners of the apartment in front of them but finding nothing that could hold much of his attention. Light looked back down and gently grabbed L's elbow, coaxing him out of his self-imposed daze. The detective blinked and looked at the hand on his elbow before turning wide black eyes to Light as the teen worryingly creased his eyebrows, "Are you alright, Ryuuzaki?"

"Yes, Light-kun," the detective mumbled as he turned back to the door and opened it wider. They both paused by the entranceway, caught by their own fears. After everything that happened last night, there was this lingering fear, this caution drilled into their minds. Like that feeling you get after watching a horror movie, making you jump at the slightest sounds or making you more paranoid than what was usual. And it was there, engraved at the back of their minds. Light didn't like that fear, because he thought it was irrational and stupid. Well, what he had once thought to be stupid anyway. But now that his fears were confirmed, it felt more dangerous, more real.

Light turned towards the man beside him and wasn't really surprised that black met brown. Light inhaled deeply and slowly let it out before clenching his fists. He could do this. He had L by his side and he wasn't alone and he had a promise to keep. He felt L shift beside him and as the detective entered the room, Light quickly followed.

Nothing was waiting for them with a kitchen knife. So far so good.

Light surveyed the very small living room that greeted them upon entering. It was narrow, probably about 3 meters and a half wide and had many things strewn about. Papers littered with drawings clearly drawn by children were pasted on the walls. On the floor and on the low coffee table were discarded ramen cups, documents, bills and dirty paper plates. Right in front of the coffee table was a television and a VCD player beneath it. Right opposite the entrance was a wall-divider, left opened by the previous occupants and showing half of the bedroom beyond it.

Light was getting a weird feel out of the place already. He definitely did not want to be here. They both slowly ventured forward, being as quiet as possible before something caught his eye. It was on the coffee table, crumpled and a bit stained but still readable. He picked it up and scanned its contents.

"Ryuuzaki," he said as he walked up to the detective standing by the divider between the living room and the small bedroom, offering the dirty paper with his forehead furrowed in confusion, "take a look at this."

The detective took it in his pincer-like grip, holding the paper against the light that emitted from the glass terrace doors in the bedroom. He squinted his eyes as he read, "As of March 21st 2010, we are terminating your mobile phone contract due to non-payment of bills." The detective frowned and he swept his dark eyes onto Light, lowering the piece of paper as he did so. "Then how come there was still a voice mail service when Matsuda-san called the other day?"

Light nodded, his heart beating fast at this information, "Exactly. Where's the connection coming from?"

Light stared as the detective looked away, lost in thought. The man's eyes danced as he considered every possibility in his mind, chewing brutishly at his thumb.

_Crash! KA-KAW! _

They both turned towards the sudden sound and found that a group of crows had dropped into the small balcony outside the terrace doors located in the equally small bedroom. Light breathed hard, his heart beating so loudly he thought it might burst out of his chest and run away screaming. He had to calm down. Nothing good ever came out of being too jumpy. He needed to get his nerves to chill, his mind to wind down. He had to have a clear mind. He forced his breathing to slow down as L hesitantly approached the windows, having recovered quicker.

The detective shrugged when he found nothing strange. Light silently watched as the slouched man became more confident with his strides as he inspected the bed that was shoved into the corner of where the divider and wall met before moving onto a dresser beside it, pulling out documents, clothes, and other knickknacks.

When Light was certain he wasn't shaking anymore, he entered the bedroom, taking in the cluttered desk that sat parallel to the bed on the opposite wall. There were off-white cupboards above the desk littered with scribbles, drawings, crayons and scratch bond paper. He smiled as he scanned through the drawings, recognizing some of them as doodles of characters of the anime he knew Sayu liked to watch during the weekends.

One by one, he lifted them off the desk and frowned when he found a torn-up picture underneath one of the drawings. He set the other drawings aside and eyed the ravaged picture with confusion. Some pieces had been turned over but it was clearly a picture of the unfortunate family. He picked one of the turned over pieces and fitted it to where it should be like one of those puzzles he used to complete as a kid. He slotted it in position and frowned as part of Mimiko's shoulder came into place, however there was still no face, as it was clearly carved out with red crayon markings (hopefully it was red crayon anyway) so harshly that it even bled to the desk beneath it. Next, his gaze drifted over to the younger girl, Mizunuma Nanako, and caressed his pointer onto the scratch marks that ran across her neck in what looked like red ballpoint pen ink and frowned as he pondered what this all could mean. Did Marie hate her daughters this much? He noticed the final turned-over piece right above the girl's head and slowly brought it over to the appropriate space and hurriedly flipped it over. The piece held the face of Mizunuma Marie, smiling widely up at the camera.

_Fshuuk! Fshuuk!_

Light whirled around and calmed down when he saw L crouched in front of the drawer and with an inhaler in hand. L must have noticed his fright for he turned towards him and pressed at the inhaler again.

_Fshuuuk! Fshuuk! _It went and the detective returned to his previous digging around in the drawer.

Light really thought he had to get his shit together and fast. He was getting startled at the silliest of things! Next thing he'll probably do is think that someone is behind him right now and was probably breathing down his neck!

And then he heard it. There were slight shuffling sounds from behind him and he mentally smacked the inner voice in his head for freaking his own self out. He was still as he listened in and the hairs at the back of his neck started standing on end again. He knew something was behind him, he was positive of it. But he didn't want to look. He didn't want to see whoever it was that was haunting this place. Was it Marie? Mimiko?

But against his wishes, he slowly, gradually turned his head to the side. Finding nothing standing beside him, he looked up and froze. Inside one of the open cupboards above the desk were pale hands sticking out, holding on to the bottom edge of the cupboard as a pale face with long black hair framing wide beady black eyes slowly came into view. Its wide eyes zoned in on Light and it just stared at him.

He fell back with a scream, his back colliding against the bed behind him as he turned away from the terrifying sight. He distinctly heard L drop things by the drawer as he came around the divider, crouching down beside Light, asking what was wrong.

Light could only point at the open cupboard as the pale hands slowly retreated inwards.

"S-something was there. I-inside the cupboards! A girl, a small girl… Oh, Good God," he muttered as he buried his face into his hands in an attempt to calm down. He had definitely seen it, it was the real thing. Oh, gods, he was shaking.

He heard L cautiously approach the open cupboard and heard it creaking open. However, there were no gasps or screams that came so he hesitantly peeked from in between his fingers and watched as the older man pulled out an old contraption within the cupboard's depths. From where Light was huddled, he could make out that it was an old video recorder, the sort that still recorded through disks and tapes. He looked on as the detective opened the tape compartment and the slight tilt of his lips downwards informed Light that there was probably no tape inside.

L set the video recorder down and crouched in front of the distraught teen, reminiscent of last night as he reached out and patted Light on the head. "Let's get out of here, Light-kun."

Light eagerly nodded at that.

* * *

_**August 26, 2010**_

_**Mushino Foster Home**_

After they had left the Kuranara Apartments they had met up with Mogi and Matsuda. The detectives said that the Foster Home where Nanako stayed called the welfare clinic just as they were leaving and informed them that Nanako didn't have any activities scheduled that afternoon and that if they wanted to see her they should do so by around 2. Since it would take at most 2 hours to get to the foster home from the investigation headquarters, they decided to split up. L and Mogi would go to the orphanage while Light and Matsuda would go and find additional information from the new Kagami Hospital.

L bit his thumb as they pulled up in the foster home's parking lot, the dust kicking up around them. They both got down from the car at the same time and were greeted by an elderly woman who was wiping her hands on the stained apron tied around her waist.

"Hello, gentlemen," she said as she bowed before waving them over, "Nanako-chan is at the back, please follow me."

They followed her to the back of the home and were led to a makeshift playground of sorts where children were playing tag or were playing on the sandbox to the far right of the lot. The old woman pointed to a lone girl sitting by the benches under the overhang near the entrance and said, "That's her, with the teddy bear."

L turned to Mogi and the burly detective moved forward and opened the door that lead outside. L walked past Mogi who had stepped aside, motioning for L to lead the way. L nodded at him in thanks and they both slowly approached the silent little girl.

L watched as Nanako put on a toy stethoscope and gently moved the chestpiece around the teddy bear's chest that sat precariously over her small lap, clearly playing doctor.

"Nanako-chan?" L put on his best baby voice as he crouched beside the girl, however, she paid him no heed. She just continued to run the chestpiece over her teddy bear's chest.

"Nanako-chan?" L tried again, eyeing the teddy bear on the girl's lap, almost as if he could compel the thing to make the young girl holding it answer all his questions. They had little time left. If they wanted to stop all of this once and for all, they had approximately less than 5 hours left. "Nanako-chan, do you know where your mother is?"

The girl continued to ignore him, not even sparing him a glance. L frowned. "Nanako-chan?"

"Ah," the old woman said as she sat down beside the little girl. "She doesn't speak."

L furrowed his eyebrows as he did not remember a file stating that Mizunuma Nanako had been mute. "Excuse me?" he asked as the woman did not understand his perplexed expression.

"Oh, it's not congenital or anything," she said as she stroked the girl's hair, "It's probably the result of the abuse."

If possible, L's frown deepened as he bit his thumb in annoyance. They had come all this way for nothing then?

"Nanako-chan, is Mr. Bear feeling sick again?" The old woman said as she assumed L's position in front of the little girl. "Is Mr. Bear having an asthma attack again?"

L's eyes snapped back towards the pair in front of him, taking all of their actions together and filing them into the back of his mind. He watched as Nanako slowly nodded at the smiling face of her caretaker.

L stood up and shoved both of his hands in his pockets. "Has there been any contact from the mother?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

The old woman gently took the bear from Nanako's arms and cradled it. "Not even a peep from her, this past six months."

L struggled to mask his disappointment.

The old woman ran a hand around the bear's chest and stopped at the center before she pressed down on a button embedded in the bear, slowly handing it back to Nanako as a song started to play from the speakers inside the stuff toy.

L froze as the familiar melody assaulted his eardrums. And judging from Mogi's tensing behind him, the detective recognized it, too.

_Ting~!_

It was a song sung by children to the tune of the ringtone of death.

"_I like cuddling," _itwent and L wasn't surprised it was in nonsensical English. But as he continued to listen to the lyrics, he could not deny the prickling in his arms as the hair on it stood on end. "_I like bowling. I like airports! I like flowers~ but not, I like- I am going to cut my mama! My mom~ I like mom! My mom~ I like mom! La la la la la la la la lalalalala!"_

"That tune," L heard Mogi whisper behind him as the detective approached.

The old woman looked up at the approaching detective and sighed, "Yes, it's the theme from a children's TV program that used to be on."

Mogi crouched next to the girl where L was a minute ago and asked, "Where's your mom?" when the girl did not answer he burst out a loud, "Do you really not know?!"

The little girl flinched and pulled her teddy bear closer to her chest at the detective's outburst, frantically shaking her head.

Mogi immediately regretted his actions and shakily stood up as L took it all in with wide eyes. Panic could really set a person off.

He had been seconds from yelling at the girl as well.

"I'm sorry," Mogi said as he wiped his sweaty brow, "I shouldn't have done that."

The old woman and the little girl only looked at the pair of them with blank looks before they simultaneously looked away.

They were back in square one.

**~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~**

An hour later, they got a phone call from Light informing them that the old Kagami Hospital where Marie worked before she died was still standing and that he intended to go and check it out. L had protested against him going and said that he and Mogi will deal with it. Light had to go and get some rest, get a clear head and stay somewhere safe. He didn't have to go prancing about an abandoned hospital when they all knew that there was a ghost after him. Light, after much more shouting, finally relented.

But L wasn't relieved in the slightest. Knowing the teen, he'd probably go anyway. That was why they were currently running red lights and getting angry pedestrians and drivers alike, shaking their fists after their car in annoyance.

* * *

_**August 26, 2010**_

_**Old Kagami Hospital **_

_**6:45 pm**_

Light looked down at his watch. He didn't have much time left. L should be here any minute now, given that he had called about 2 hours ago. But even if the detective weren't, Light was still going to go in. He had to! What did he have to lose if he did anyway if he were dying just the same?

He frowned up at the rundown hospital in determination as he pulled his coat tighter against his body, adjusting the navy blue scarf wrapped around his neck closer, hiding the bottom half of his pink face. It was dark, the only light coming from the lone lamp post just outside the gates of the hospital. He realized he was hanging around a lot of rundown buildings than was healthy lately, and this time he was heading in alone so he had every right to be a bit terrified and cautious.

He took in a long steady breath and slowly let it out, looking at the old hospital with a renewed sense of conviction and determination. Well, at least he willed the determination back into his subconscious. He didn't have to acknowledge the fact that he almost felt that something was watching him from the dark windows of the hospital, or that the hair on the back of his head were standing on end. He gave the place one more glance around, hoping that he wasn't alone and that L would be arriving soon but one more quick glance at his watch told Light he didn't have to the time to wait for the others to arrive anymore.

If he was going to die anyway, he was going to find out what the cause of all this insanity was.

He huffed and walked forward to the dusty glass doors of the entrance to the hospital, not surprised that it wouldn't budge no matter how hard he tried to pull them apart. He frowned before looking to his side. If he could just find another entrance somewhere…

He narrowed his eyes and pushed away from the doors and he decided that he should circle the entire hospital's perimeter in search of a back door somewhere, like an employee entrance or something to that effect.

He scoured the area and his expression slightly brightened when he located a grey backdoor that looked like it had been the entrance to the ER of sort. The chain that had held it together was broken in half and the door was left ajar, probably from thieves who had entered to building in search of steel they could have weighed in a junk shop somewhere.

Light stalked towards it to verify that yes, it was indeed open and he let out a relieved smile before it morphed into a weary frown. Should he really enter the place when he knew that a ghost could very well be waiting for him in the other side? He glanced at his watch again and it informed him that it was already ten minutes before seven.

Light sighed. Where the fuck was L?

Light turned towards the door again. Okay, fine. He was going to do this by himself. He made for the handle when he heard something skittering at the other side of the door and a soft tinkling of a cellphone from within.

Light's expression transformed into one of confusion.

Was L already in the building?

Light blinked and he made for the handle again, cracking the door open as slowly as possible. He peered inside and was greeted by the mess that was left in the wake of relocation. Light slowly entered and glanced around. There were overturned furniture everywhere, debris cluttering the place up and a dirty mirror hanging just above a lone sink on the wall of the hallway that stretched vertically in front of him. A faint light lit the long hallway as it stretched out into the darkness. But there was nobody in sight.

Light swallowed as he felt his heart beat quicken. Well, he was inside now. There was no use turning back. Now, all he had to do was look for a power switch of the sort. He did not even question why an abandoned building such as this still had working electricity. He was actually grateful for it so he wouldn't have to go on in the frigid dark alone. He felt the wall as he moved forward, his eyes already adjusting to the dimness of the building. Five steps away from where he was currently standing was another hallway that cut perpendicular to the hallway before him, and a soft red light seemed to be coming off from the left side. He slowly moved toward it, peering around the corner just in case and was only greeted by an empty corridor that stretched into another patch of darkness.

Light looked up and there was the power box. He reached up and fumbled around for a moment before his hands met a lever. He pulled on it and the building groaned as electricity was zapped back into its foundation, the lights flickering on after a few seconds. And that was when he heard it again.

It was the tinkling of a cellphone. The only reconciliation Light had was that it was not the melody of death playing. It was an ordinary tinkling and he just hoped it was either L or one of the other detectives.

"Ryuuzaki?" he called as he followed where the sound was coming from, gaining confidence with every step he took now that he could actually see where he was going. Although the hallways still remained dim, at least he wasn't fumbling around in the dark anymore. He shuffled back to where he was standing before when there was a clattering of a pan from somewhere deep in the building.

He looked up to locate the noise and he ventured forward, turning his back to the mirror he had seen when he entered. And as he moved away from it, he failed to see the figure of a woman with black hair framing her downcast face silently follow him.

He didn't turn back and just continued to walk until he came across a staircase. He climbed it as he was sure he heard the clattering from the floor above.

He was regretting his decision of entering the building alone now and realized that it was a total dick move a protagonist from a horror movie would pull entering abandoned hospitals at night knowing that some crazy vengeful ghost was after their ass. Light vowed he would never criticize a horror movie protagonist ever again if he somehow survived… this.

When he arrived at the second floor, he was immediately met with another hallway that stretched perpendicular to the stairs. He peered at the hallway to his right and found nothing worth mentioning before the faint tinkling of the cellphone assaulted his ears again. He snapped his head to the hallway to his left where he heard the ringtone was coming from and gulped.

"Ryuuzaki?" he called out again as he followed the sound, nearing a few doorways cautiously. His heartbeat was loud in his ears and his palms were starting to get clammy. Slow baby steps forward, he neared the door where the ringtone was coming from and as he slowly closed in, he thought he saw a brief flash of a white cotton shirt and faded blue jeans disappearing behind the doorway.

"Ryuuzaki, wait!" Light quickened his steps but when he stood just inside the doorway, he paused when he was met with an empty abandoned room, the lights flickering from above. He had been sure that he saw Ryuuzaki entering the room just a second ago.

Unless…

Light froze, suddenly aware of his surroundings at the notion that he had been purposely led here by the ghost. Swallowing loudly, he stepped further into the room, his shoes clicking ominously against the tiled floor as the ringtone still blared from further inside the room.

He stepped away from the entrance and neared the curtain divider he could see separating him from the room itself. With each step forward his right hand steadily reached for the curtain as the ringtone still rang around the room, bouncing off tiled walls and floors, ringing in his ears until it was the only thing he could hear.

He shoved the curtain aside. The ringtone stopped. However, his body was wound up so tight that he'd probably jump at the slightest sound. His eyes quickly scanned the room as lights flickered above his head.

Nothing.

He entered the room as he took notice of another curtain shielding another table from view. This was where the ringing was coming from, so there should at least be a cellphone somewhere, and it only left the room beyond that curtain. Biting his lip, Light strode forward with his heart beating erratically against his ribcage that he thought it might break out of it.

For a second time he reached for the curtain again, and he watched with wide eyes as his shaking hands shoved the curtain aside one more time.

_Ting~!_

He froze.

_La do mi do la ti re ti…!_

_This was not fucking happening._ His heart stuttered in his chest as a cold chill ran the length of his spine, making his knees buckle in raw fear. He heard someone whimper in the supposedly empty room but he paid it no heed as he stared with wide, crazed eyes at the phone in the table before him.

It was his _fucking_ phone; his phone that had been snapped in half and dumped in an aquarium by an irate detective the night before. And yet here it was, still in half and with a revolting pile of wriggling maggots and rot in between the two cellphone parts. Light heard the whimper again as he noticed that there were black feathers mixed in the nauseating mound and he realized after an agonizing beat that this was a decaying corpse of a bird, a crow, in the same room as him with live disgusting maggots feasting on it.

And then out of absolutely nowhere, two droplets of blood appeared on the phone as it read in flashing text:

_Incoming Call:_

_Yagami Light_

Fighting the bile that rushed up his throat, he whirled around just as he heard the screaming start.

He belatedly realized that those whimpers and screams he heard were from his own mouth as he ran mindlessly out of the room.

He had to get the fuck out of here.

With shaking legs, he stumbled out of the room with his mind trying to grasp the last semblance of his sanity. He shouldn't have come here, he should have waited for L to return, he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have…

_Do la ti re ti…!_

He fell on his knees as his legs wouldn't stop trembling just as he made it out of the room and into the hallway. He flipped around, not wanting to take his eyes away from where his cellphone was still continuing to torment him with that awful ringtone that had plagued his head ever since day one. His breaths came in shuddering pants as he pawed backwards, trying to put as much distance from the room as possible. He knew there were tears leaking out of his eyes and running down either side of his face as he sobbed but he didn't care.

He was terrified. So fucking terrified, he could hardly move his legs anymore.

And then the lights went out with a groan.

Light yelped, whirling around on his spot at the floor so he could glance at the hallway behind him, dreading the worst.

There was nothing. Everything was silent, even the melody of death was gone. He couldn't hear anything but his pants and his sobs as he tried to calm down, tears still running their course on his cheeks.

He struggled to control his breathing else he'd start hyperventilating which would not help his situation at the moment. He stayed still, his breaths still coming out in pants as he gazed at the darkened hallway that stretch before him in trepidation.

Behind him, long strands of coarse black hair descended from the ceiling just an arm's length away from where he sat. It went lower and lower until a pale face came into view, staring menacingly at the back of Light's head as it slowly brought its arms up and shaped it as if it were holding someone's neck in a chokehold. It moved slowly as it walked upside-down, its steps leaving bloody footprints on the blackened ceiling.

Light felt an ominous presence behind him that made the hackles behind his neck stand on end. He whipped around for the nth time that day and was greeted by nothing but an empty hallway. He puffed out a breath he had not known he was holding and shakily stood back up, wringing the front of tails of his scarf as he did so.

There had been something behind him then. He would know, it had been the same feeling he got back at the Mizunuma apartment right before he turned around to look at the cupboard behind him.

He took a step backward, his eyes frantically regarding the hallway in fear that something would jump out from one of the doors. He took another step back, and then another. Not noticing the woman tucked behind him with smoldering beady black eyes and black hair framing her pale face. He stopped moving backwards, feeling cold air behind him that seeped through his scarf and coat, literally freezing him in place.

Oh shit, he chanted in his mind as he felt cold air brush against his left cheek. His breathing quickened again as his eyes shakily regarded his left side.

The smell of rot and death filled his nostrils as he turned his head fully to the side and stood frozen as he regarded the blackened decaying emaciated hand that writhed next to his face. Its fingers snapping and curling backward in a painful angle and maggots suddenly broke out of the skin were it tore.

Light screamed and ran forward, mindlessly opening and shutting doors that led to other hallways and stairwells but he didn't care. He just ran, anything just to get away from the dead woman who walked the hospital walls just to kill him. He ran and ran deeper into the hospital until he knew he was lost but he didn't care.

Light tucked himself in a hallway corner where he knew nothing would ever sneak up on him from behind. Wiping the tear tracks from his cheeks in frustration, he fought to control his breathing again as he hugged his knees close to his chest. He didn't know what to do anymore. All he knew was that he wanted to get away from this hospital and sleep and hang out with Takada, Mikami and Sayu. None of this bullshit. He wanted to eat his Mother's homemade cookies again, he wanted to just curl up on her lap and sleep and hopefully when he would wake, everything had been one clusterfuck of a nightmare conjured from childhood tales and fears.

He wanted to go home.

Light grit his teeth. Where the fuck was L anyway? When the detective arrived, he would demand that he be sent home immediately and he will indulge in all the cake the man could offer.

Something scraped the floor from somewhere behind him and he froze, going silent as he strained his ears to make out what it was. He peeked around the corner and scanned the hallway behind him anxiously. The lights were still out so he had to squint in order to make out what was 5 feet away.

One of the doors in the hallway suddenly creaked open and he held his breath as little pale hands, the hands of a child, he observed, placed a glass container out into the hallway. Just far enough that he could make out what was floating inside it.

It was a human fetus.

Light's breathing hitched as the hands withdrawed back inside the room, leaving the fetus in the hallway. Despite his mind screaming no, Light crawled away from his nook in the corner to get a better look on the fetus inside it but froze when another door just a few meters away from him (but much, much closer than the first one) opened and then the same tiny hands placed another glass container in the hallway.

Light wasn't surprised that it also contained another human fetus inside it, although this one looked more bloody and its head more bulbous and wrinkly.

What the fuck was happening? What was with all these fetuses?

Another door opened on his other side, and this one was much closer than the other two as it was the door just right next to him. The same pair of hands placed another glass container on the hallway next to him and that was when he noticed his heart was beating a hundred miles per minute, sweat was trickling the sides of his face in anticipation as he shakily sat back against the wall and gawked at the newest glass container.

He didn't know what the hell was inside it but it sure as hell looked gross.

Something shuffled behind him and he stilled as he stared straight ahead at the yellowed wall in front of him in dejected acquiescence. He somehow knew what would happen next as he felt cold arms slide around him and something heavy and cold settled on his lap.

Oh please, oh please, oh dear god. NO. No no no nonononononono…

He still continued to stare at the wall in front of him, frozen to his spot and afraid that any sudden movements would trigger the ghost into harming him. So he slowly, painstakingly, looked down, a scream bubbling up in his throat even before he confirmed that yes it was indeed a glass container on his lap right now, bluish pale hands retreating from either side of him as he let out an ear piercing scream.

He screamed at the face he saw staring up at him from inside the glass case. Grunting, he heaved the glass container out of his lap and threw it as far away from him as possible, breaking into a thousand wet pieces in the hallway before him that flashed bloody for a brief second before it returned to its natural dirty state.

Oh god, he couldn't take this anymore, Light thought as he shakily started crawling away from the mess he had made, not trusting his legs to stand at the moment. He had to get out of here, he couldn't think, he couldn't breathe. He had to, he had to find a fucking way out. Someone, someone, where are you?

Something grabbed his left leg. Light could not even let out a scream as he sucked in a shaky painful breath. He quickly looked behind him when the grip tightened around his left ankle and what he saw made the scream that had been lodged in his throat escape, ripping away at his vocal chords as he was harshly dragged backwards across the hallway floor. Right towards a gaping black hole of a room he did not recognize with wide black bloodshot eyes that glowed against the oppressing darkness of the room.

Light struggled to find something to latch on to. Anything, anything to make the fucking thing stop. He found purchase on the doorjamb, momentarily stopping himself from being completely dragged inside the room as his boot came off his leg with a loud pop.

Holy shit, holy fucking shit, holy shit. He internally chanted as he struggled to take all of that in. He had been assaulted by a ghost, he was still alive, he was still breathing judging from the harsh pants and the sobs that were racking his chest like a windowpane during a storm.

He started crawling out of the room again, sobbing and panting as he went when a beam of light suddenly assaulted his eyes. He cried out and started to drag himself away from the light source as quickly as possible in all fours before arms wrapped around him from behind.

"No!" he screamed as he struggled, "Let go of me! Stop!"

Hands grabbed both of shoulders and he was forced to look back up at his assailant. "Light-kun, it's me!"

Light took in the detective that knelt before him, his wide black worried eyes and white long-sleeved shirt and faded blue jeans and Light thought he had never seen something so angelic his entire fucking life.

"It's me, Light-kun, calm down." L continued to say when Light only looked at him like he was Christ's second coming.

Light gazed unbelievingly at the detective for a second before he let out a sob and buried his face in the distraught man's chest, crushing L's ribcage in the process as he held on tight.

L allowed the contact as he noticed just how much the young man was shaking. He wrapped an arm around Light's shoulders as he stroked his sweat-soaked hair, making soothing noises as Light continued to sob on his chest.

"Light-kun knew better than to enter abandoned hospitals by himself."

Light chuckled against the detective's neck as he struggled to calm himself down. He gently pulled away from the older man and rubbed at his bloodshot eyes, "I thought you were already inside." He sniffed, "I mean, I _saw_ you."

L's brow furrowed as he took this in. He reached forward and cupped Light's face with a steady hand. He scanned Light's face to look for cues that the boy was lying, but found none. He frowned, and Light before him mirrored it, too. "Light-kun," L said, "I only just arrived."

Light shuddered. Well, shit.

"Light-kun, Mogi-san and Matsuda-san are outside. Let's get out of here."

That proposition had both of their consents.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

After retrieving Light's missing footwear, they stalked the hospital halls for an exit. L had his arm wrapped protectively around Light's waist as the other one held up a flashlight. They eventually found a door that led outside. They exchanged meaningful glances at each other and they both nodded. They had to get out of here first. They'd deal with other things later. Such as saving Light's life first.

L twisted to knob of the steel door before pushing it open, however a chain stopped it from completely opening fully. L cursed and handed Light the flashlight before he reached around to unhook the chain from the other side. He jingled the chain around before a pale bluish hand shot out from the darkness of the other side and made a grab for L's arm. He pulled away with a gasp before it could find purchase. Light snapped out from his self-imposed stupor and pulled the door back shut and then the creature from the other side suddenly slammed its face on the steel door. They both yelped. Whatever it was probably had a pretty solid face as it left an actual imprint on the steel before the imprint suddenly moved and its mouth formed a moan and Oh god, what the fuck was that thing.

L grabbed Light's arm and suddenly they were running again. They found a room before they locked themselves inside it and L settled Light to squat behind a steel morgue table before the detective stood back up again.

Panting, L eyed the door in fear that the ghost would come rampaging into the room, screaming bloody murder before:

_Ting~!_

Both geni froze as that single note echoed around the morgue walls. Light, who was peaking from behind the table's thick legs froze as the ringtone continued to play. Judging from where the sound was the loudest, it was right above him.

_La do mi do la ti re ti…!_

He slowly, excruciatingly lifted his head and just when his eyes breached the table's surface, his cellphone, pieces intact once again, was dab smack right next to his face on top of the table he hid behind. And on the screen were slowly appearing hiragana characters, almost as if someone was still typing the message out.

_Your life expires at 56 seconds…_

_55…_

_54…_

_53…_

Light screamed and this jolted the detective into action. L crouched in front of him before he wrapped his thin arms around the hysterical teen as he hid his head back on the detective's chest.

"God dammit, come out!" L screamed at the empty room in frustration. This had to bloody end now! "Come out, you son of a bitch!"

He scanned the room as he taunted the monster that was probably watching them struggle in morbid fascination before his black eyes zeroed on a blackened hand that was sticking out of a cemented crate at the far corner of the room adjacent to where they currently were. And on that blackened hand was a red cellphone with its screen still glowing in the darkness. L looked at in confusion as a little bit of hope filled his chest. He slowly untangled himself from Light and the teen let go without a fuss. L gulped as he straightened, nearing the cellphone as steadily as possible until he stood just inside the entranceway of that room where he could make out that words flashing on its screen.

_Dialing:_

_Yagami Light_

"That's Mizunuma Marie's phone," he whispered as he debated whether he should take it or not. He threw caution into the wind and viciously grabbed the phone away from the corpse's hand and he frantically pressed cancel.

"Stop!" he yelled, "Goddammit, stop doing this!"

_Do la ti r-_

Everything was silent as the ringtone cut itself off. L glanced at the ball of clothes tucked next to the morgue table before discerning that yes, Light was still alive, although shaking and flustered and generally just sad-looking.

Light looked up at the detective before him in confusion, blinking away the last of his tears before he pulled at his coat sleeve to look at his watch.

**7:14 pm**

Light let out a deep relieved breath. He was alive, oh Christ, he was alive.

L crouched before him again and reached out to cup his face, wiping away the tear tracks from his cheek with a gentle expression on his face. "It's over, Light-kun." He said, "It's ok, now."

Light searched the detective's face before he sighed, leaning on the detective's shoulder as he processed this. That they were alive, that everything was over.

L allowed a small smile to envelop his face before he turned to where he figured the corpse of Mizunuma Marie was. His smile fell and he stood up. Light looked up when the detective moved and shuffled over to the other room.

Gingerly stepping into room once again, L gently pried the wooden planks that obscured the corpse from full view. Making the smell of rot and decay permeate through the room now that it was open. He made a face at the first waft of the smell and he placed his arm over his nose to smother it. The smell made his stomach clench and the chocolate bar he had eaten on the ride here rise up his throat.

He surveyed the decaying corpse of Marie, its hair only in small black clumps on her skull and her skin black from deterioration. It was truly a ghastly sight, even for a detective of his caliber.

He backed away to get some fresh air and was not surprised to find Light hovering by the doorway. He looked over at the teen and coughed, "It's should be the mother's body, if my deductions are correct."

He coughed again, the smell so repugnant and heady.

He watched as Light hesitantly put a step forward into the room and L warned him with a quick "It's better not to look" but the bo disregarded him completely. His tired brown eyes gazed at the corpse in sadness, not even flinching at the smell it reeked. L figured his nose was still clogged with the amount of crying he had been doing the past half hour.

"She wanted to be found," Light said in a tiny voice as he gazed down at body riddled with slowly decomposing flesh. If only they had moved faster, they could have found her sooner. But Light wondered just how much sadness he can show to a woman who had abused her daughters. He bent down in front of the corpse and propped himself on the edge of the cement crate with trembling arms, right next to the corpse's hand.

Suddenly, the rotten hand that had just been next him suddenly became animated. And the next thing he knew something wet and slimy made a grab for his head, gripping and pulling at his hair, and he whimpered at the pain that shot down his neck. His body swung at the force of the corpse using his body as a bracing point so that it could stand. And now here it was in all its rotten glory, gazing down at him with red bloodshot eyes and flesh that slid slowly off its face, dragging clumps of black hair along with it.

Light couldn't move. Not because it had a very strong grip on his head, but because he was rooted to his spot in fear again. It was staring straight at him and he could only look on in horror as it slowly descended its repulsive face next to his.

He heard a wild battle cry from somewhere behind him and the next thing he knew he was being pulled away from the reanimated corpse by a frightened L.

It would have been comical for two grown men to be screaming hysterically and holding on to each other (so tightly you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began) inside an abandoned hospital if it hadn't been the two of them currently stuck in this situation.

Light held on to L as the detective practically dragged him out of the room, both of them screaming in tandem as the corpse staggered after them. L pushed Light behind him as he pulled out a gun that was tucked between the waistband of his pants and his back. He leveled it at the corpse whose bloodshot eyes were focused entirely at the boy behind him before he pulled the trigger and shot the woman right between her eyes.

But that didn't even bother her in the slightest. She directed her smoldering gaze at the speechless detective before she started moving forwards again, like she just hadn't had a bullet put through her head.

L clicked the safety of the gun back on before shoving the gun back to where it belonged. He grabbed Light off the ground before they turned back to the exit.

He pulled Light behind him as he shoved the door open. However, when he successfully crossed the threshold, some unseen force blocked the door and Light bounced back inside the morgue, the door slamming bolt shut with the detective on the other side, pounding on it mercilessly as he called Light's name.

"Light-kun!" L shook the door, pushed his body against it and shot at the lock, but it just wouldn't budge, "Light-kun!"

Light groaned as he held his head, feeling like he had been hit by a truck before wet footsteps patted right next to his head. He looked up and saw the woman right next to him. He sat up as fast as he could, his head spinning as he slid away from the woman making her way towards him.

He backed away with every step the woman took, his hands pulling his body backwards as his legs pushed at the floor. He gulped when his back met the wall. He looked up at the corpse but strangely didn't feel the urge to sob. He just looked at her with sad chocolate brown eyes as he accepted his fate. He was going to die here. Die at the hands of a decomposing zombie of a woman who abused her children.

Light sobbed. Was he always going to be plagued by abusers his entirely fucking life? He disdainfully thought as L continued to scream his name from the outside.

Light stared up at the corpse as it finally stood before him, not even half a meter away; its decaying, rot-infested flesh sliding off of its bones and landing in a disgusting splat on the floor.

But Light didn't see that, all he could see was the image of his step mother towering before him and he was back as a kid again, shivering and cold against the frosty tatami mats of his previous home.

The corpse reached out, just as the image of his stepmom did and they both raised their arms and formed their hands into a chokehold.

The image of his stepmom faded from his mind and all he could see now was the corpse of Mizunuma Marie, and the next thing he knew her hands were already around his throat, squeezing and holding on tight.

Light's eyes were wide as he fought for breath and he stared long and hard at the angry woman before him whose eyes were pinning him on the spot. He coughed, not even bothering to struggle or push her away as he said, "I understand, Mom," he sobbed, tears streaming down both his cheeks as he forced air into his lungs again, "I won't run away anymore."

Marie's hands only tightened their hold over his throat and Light winced as he breathed harshly again, his nose clogged enough to begin with. "I'll be a good boy for you," he choked out another painful sob as he lifted shaking hands to dislodge the hands around his throat, "I'll stay here with you. Just please,"

Light gasped as he forced air to enter his lungs again as he pried the rotten hands away from his throat, the smell not bothering him in the slightest as he continued to cry. "I'm sorry, I'll be a good boy. I'll be a good boy from now on, mom. I'll stay here with you. So, please…" Overwhelmed by emotion, he hugged the corpse of the woman who had killed all of his friends and sister, but that didn't deter him. He sobbed into her neck, the rot sticking to his cheek but he paid it no heed. He just continued to hold on to her and he didn't see the solitary tear that slipped passed Marie's eyes until she went limp in his arms.

When L finally pried the steel doors open, he stumbled haphazardly into the room; his head whipping back and forth as he tried to locate Light and the corpse of Marie Mizunuma. When he did spot them, he froze. His non-existent eyebrows furrowed so deeply at the sight and he was momentarily derailed at the oddness of the position they were in.

Sitting on the dirty grey floor, Light had his back pressed rigidly against the wall as he stared straight ahead, his eyes blank. He had one leg bent at the knee with the corpse propped against it and Light's arm was wrapped around its shoulders to keep it steady. His other leg was stretched before him with the corpse legs on top of it, creating this bizarre pieta-like scene in L's mind. The only thing that made it creepy was that the corpse had its mouth wide open as its head was tipped backwards and facing the ceiling.

L shivered.

At least it was hopefully, _finally_ over.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

The red and blue lights of the police cars bathed the outer perimeter of the hospital with an eerie glow as police officers and personnel fleeted about the scene. Most of them thought that this was kind of an over the top reaction to finding someone's body who had been missing for months. Some of them knew that this was indeed one hell of a big deal and just shushed the complaining cops into compliance.

Soichirou Yagami got out of the car that had just arrived and hurriedly hugged the heck out of his son in relief. He had almost lost him, he had almost lost him a second time to a woman who abused her children. But he was glad he was fine now and he released him to offer him a smile. The smile he got back practically wiped away his jittery nerves.

Everything was alright now.

Everything would go back to normal.

He heard footsteps behind him and he turned around to the weary but happy faces of Mogi and Matsuda who both gave Light and the detective beside him steaming cups of coffee. Light had wrapped his own scarf around L's neck as the detective had been shivering ever since they had gotten out of that godforsaken place and both were now perfectly content just staying by each other's side.

What they had seen inside that hospital had brought them closer together and served as something they could both value as common ground. Light had shared that mind scarring experience with the detective and found that as long as the other lived, then he would be that anchor that blared the gruesome fact that no, Light hadn't been crazy. They had both seen weird stuff happen inside that hospital that could make any grown intellectual mad. The truth that he had believed in most of his life had been proven false, after all. Ghosts, reanimated corpses, chain messages that killed you. Everything was real. And just the fact that someone other than himself knew of this was an extreme comfort.

Mogi turned to L and nodded. When he received a nod back, he continued, "The foster center called for you about an hour ago."

L raised one of his eyebrows, silently urging Mogi to elaborate. "The principal said they had something to show you," Mogi continued, "And since you were … engaged at the moment we had them come up to the investigation headquarters themselves and offered that they can spend the night over there before they made the trip back to the foster center tomorrow early morning."

"They?" L inquired.

"The principal and Nanako-chan."

L nodded as he stood and started to unwind the scarf around his neck but Light stopped him from doing so. The boy just smiled and asked him to keep it.

"I'll make sure Light-kun gets to his apartment safely." Matsuda chirped from behind them, "You must be tired, right, Light-kun?"

Light didn't want to admit it, but yes, he was mind-numbingly tired. He wished he could go back to the investigation headquarters with them but it was likely he was going to get some opposition from his father and L that he should get some rest. So he didn't bother to complain. He just nodded and took a sip from his coffee.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

"We found this." The old female principal from earlier that day said as she held up a tape, one that would be used for those outdated video recorders. "It was hidden in Nanako's things."

Said girl was playing with her teady in the couch not 5 meters away from them.

Mogi accepted the tape and slid it into the appropriate compartment in L's investigation room. The large monitor above them fizzled and buzzed before it cleared away and the view of a dirty, topsy-turvy room was displayed before them.

L vaguely noticed that it was from the angle of where they found the recorder on the cupboard that morning.

"Where's this?" Mogi questioned.

"That's the Mizunuma's flat. Light-kun and I were just there earlier today."

No one spoke after that as they watched a shadowed figure hover by the front door

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

Light sighed as he let the warm water cleanse his skin, unwinding the stress from his muscles as he ran his hands over his wet hair. When he had gotten home, he had immediately stalked towards his shower, eager to get the grim and dirt away from his body as soon as possible.

He sighed again as the tension slowly left his body. Everything was going to go back the way it was now, he thought.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

L and Mogi stared long and hard as a girl appeared into view. Mizunuma Mimiko, the older daughter who had died from an asthma attack, L's mind hurriedly supplied as he watched the girl grab her younger sister, teddy bear and all, and sat her on the ground, right in view of the camera recorder.

L frowned as he unconsciously neared the large monitors, wanting not to miss even the slightest detail as worry began to crop up in his stomach.

He watched as Mimiko left his sister on the floor for a while and then she came back with something in her hands. L squinted but his eyes immediately widened when the object in Mimiko's hands glinted.

Was that a knife?

L's brow creased as Mimiko lifted her sister's left arm slowly and then she ran the knife along her arm in one forceful swipe.

Mogi gasped as L jolted in shock.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

Elsewhere, Light had just finished shampooing his hair when he felt a presence behind him. He stilled before he looked over his shoulder.

Nothing.

Shrugging it off to leftover paranoia from the day's events he turned back around, grumbling to himself as he bent his head under the water's stream. When he bent down, it revealed the countenance of a little girl staring at the back of his neck with gleaming round black eyes.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

L, Mogi and the principal watched as Mimiko pushed her sister away and the little girl cried out and sobbed on the floor, holding on to her wound that had started bleeding profusely. She cried and cried as her older sister towered over her, holding unto a familiar looking cellphone.

"Don't worry," Mimiko said as she stared down at her bawling sister, "I'll take you to the hospital."

"Sorry, I'm late!" came a greeting from the door and Mimiko visibly froze. Mizunuma Marie came into view of the shot and she stilled by the doorway as she took in the scene with wide confused eyes.

Neither of them moved as the two females stared at each with wide frightened eyes. Mimiko started heaving, her shoulders visibly straining to draw in oxygen as she inched her way into an asthma attack.

Marie stared on as her eldest daughter started coughing. "It was you all along, wasn't it, Mimiko?" she breathed out, her eyes and stance tired from the sleepless nights and long shifts at work. Nanako's wails still loud in the oppressive silence that enveloped the slowly falling apart family.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

Light sat in front of his bed as he blow-dried his hair. He knew it was bad to go to bed with wet hair. He was busy trying to make sure that he got everywhere dried off that he did not notice the clock that sat atop the dresser next to his bed stop ticking.

It read 10:15, the sweep hand stopping its count of the seconds before it started ticking counter-clockwise.

10:15 and 20 seconds, 10:15 and 19 seconds… it continued moving backwards, going counter-clockwise faster and faster.

_10:15_

_10: 14_

_10: 13_

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

L and Mogi watched as the truth unraveled before them, mutual sinking feelings in their chest as they heard feet padding towards them.

They turned to Nanako, who was looking up at the screen above them with fascination before she turned her wide-eyed gaze at the detective rooted to his spot.

"So it wasn't your mother who was hurting you all this time," L said as he turned to fully face the young girl, "But it was your older sister."

The girl didn't respond.

L knelt before her, grabbing her thin waist in a silent plea to please, please answer me. He stilled when he felt something bulging from the little bag that was slung around Nanako's shoulders. He had accidentally placed his hand over it, which was just as well because when he opened the bag and reached inside, he froze when its smooth round surface met his palm.

L knew what was inside the bag even before he extracted it.

A red jawbreaker.

He held it up to the little girl in silent horror.

"But she always gave me sweets afterwards," was Nanako's sweet little answer, "'Get well soon', she would say."

L froze when he heard commotion from the screen above them and he turned around just in time to watch Marie push Mimiko away as she grabbed the knife and cellphone from the little girl's hands.

Mimiko fell on her face and she coughed and coughed as Marie glared at her before the nurse grabbed Nanako and held her against her chest protectively. She was about to leave and get Nanako to a hospital and leave her Mimiko to fend for herself when the girl's unceasing coughing whacked her conscience over the head. She gave her eldest daughter one last apologetic glance, her coughs wracking her thin frame, before Marie bit her lower lip in despair before she eventually, _finally_ left.

Mimiko thrashed in the ground calling for her mother that it hurt, she couldn't breathe, help! Mama, I can't breathe! Don't leave me!

And above her the recorder's little red light still caught everything in tape.

Even as she heaved her last breath.

L immediately scrambled away from the monitors just as Matsuda burst through the investigation doors, yelling about how he had safely delivered Light home only to have L practically frothing in the mouth, come up at his face yelling that they should "Get back in the fucking car, Light's in fucking danger!"

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

Light turned the blow dryer off when he heard a sound. He looked over his shoulder at his empty apartment before shrugging again. He was tired, he just needed sleep. He placed the blow dryer on top of his dresser and noticed that his clock was ticking back in the wrong way. He frowned at it uncomprehendingly before someone banged at his door.

"Light-kun! Light-kun!"

Light jerked away from his dresser and shuffled back to his sitting room warily. He was already dressed in his pajamas, he did not want to be seen in public like this. Even if it was just L at the other side of his door.

"Ryuuzaki?" he questioned at the still closed door.

"It's me." L said, still frantic, "Light-kun, are you alright?" This question was followed by two knocks.

Light moved two steps forward before he hesitated. He turned back towards his broken clock. Forehead creasing when he realized what time it was.

7: 30

7:29

7:28

7:27

Light immediately noticed that it was steadily ticking back to 7:13 pm. Panicking, he turned towards the door to let the detective in. He needed L here, something fishy was going on.

"Light-kun, are you alright?" L questioned again when Light didn't answer.

Light started unlocking his numerous locks when L asked again, "Light-kun, are you alright?" in the same tone he used for the previous questions.

"Light-kun, are you alright?"

That's when Light froze.

"Ryuuzaki?" he asked hesitantly.

"Light-kun, are you alright?" was the only answer he got.

That was definitely not L behind his fucking door, he thought as he slowly started backing away from his door.

"Light-kun, are you alright?"

Jesus shit, holy fucking Christ.

"Light-kun, are you alright?"

Light eyed the peephole on his door and shuddered.

_"I'm telling you I'm serious! He just can't look through holes! He's terrified of 'em! Even if you promised him a million yen, he'd still refuse to look through them!"_

He remembered what Sayu said that night when everything changed.

He steeled his expression and manned up.

The clock behind him struck 7:12 before it started ticking back the regular way. Clockwise.

He leveled his eye on the peephole and indeed it was not L behind the door.

It was a pale little girl with a fucking knife.

Light gasped as a sharp metal rod went through the peephole and he pressed against the wall beside his door in shock. Holy shit!

It withdrawed back and Light mindlessly went further back into his apartment. His shaky legs couldn't take him any further so he dropped down in the floor of his living room.

That was when he noticed he was definitely not alone anymore.

Because right there, sitting comfortably in his couch was the unearthly form of one Mizunuma Mimiko, eating what looked like broken pieces of a red jawbreaker.

Light could only stare at her as the girl gracelessly stood up from the couch, her stare piercing Light's and he sat still on the floor, unable to move.

Light breathed in shakily as the girl stepped forward, she disappeared for a moment before she reappeared and a whole lot closer now.

"…Why?" Light asked in a painfully tiny voice, tired and confused and miserable. Why? Didn't they already solve the case? Why was Mimiko here? Why was she still haunting him?

Why?

Mimiko walked forward and she tilted her head to the side as she regarded the teen in front of her in fascination.

"…Why?" she threw the question back at him and Light didn't know the answer.

She disappeared again and this time she reappeared right next to Light.

And then Light screamed for the last time that night.

**; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ; ~ ;**

**A/N:**

Oh gosh, wow! That was long! I seriously wanted to cut it off when L finally arrived at the hospital but thought, "Eh, I haven't updated in so long so I should make do with a long chapter."

**The next one should be the last chapter.** It should be considerably shorter than this, don't worry. Also, L's coming to Light's rescue! DUN DUN DUN DUN!

I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for joining me in this horror roller coaster ride! Seriously, you guys were my driving force! Every review I got made me so flipping happy that I could even write this in the middle of the night and freak myself out!

Seriously guys, thank you thank you thank you!

Please review, again? I would like to think that I worked extra hard on this chapter so critics and comments would be lovely!

Even reactions entirely made out of keysmash works, too! I know I do that a lot when I review!

Once again. THANK YOU FROM THE DEEPEST PITS OF MY SOUL.

Rai :)


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